View Full Version : D3 Achievements
Brandonn
07-06-2009, 08:23
I don't have a 360 :(, but while I played WoW I got a taste of Achievements, nothing more than bragging rights really, but I love them. I even found an online game site (shock wave type stuff) that has achievements, and that's the only reason I prefer their site to other's.
I think D3 would be perfect for Achievements. And with the revamping of B.net 2.0, you'd think it'd be the perfect time for this. All your Blizzard games will be together with one account.
So, please post your comments, but also, add a few Achievements you'd like to see.
Level 10 - Reach Level 10.
Level 20 - etc.
Decapitation - Decapitate 10 monsters.
Trade Skill - Raise a 0/15 skill to max.
Rain, Sleet, or Snow - Travel uphill, both ways.
I've never played a game with achievements that have actually been worth it, or a challenge to get. They just seem to accumulate the more you play...kinda pointless
PahaLukki
07-06-2009, 09:46
I think achievements are a waste of the gamemaker's time and gamer's time.. GW has titles which are endlessly boring grindfests to achieve. Some of the titles even have bonuses added to them, like through certain PvE skills. All in all it just makes people grind for the titles. It's repetitive and it's not fun.
Yeah, playing games is also a huge waste of people's time if you take a look at it :whistling:. Achievements make gamers keep playing and explore content they wouldn't bother with otherwise. They are a fast way of saying how good or hardcore a player is at certain aspects of the game.
Blizz already stated that they will be adding achievements to D3 and SC2. The only rewards from achievements in WoW are titles, vanity pets and mounts, so nothing game altering. Spoilsports who dislike them can just ignore them.
CombatShrine
07-06-2009, 11:03
If they are cool and challenging to get, yeah.
Like "Undefeated", collect 10 consecutive ears in randomly-paired arena matches or something, if such a thing exists in the game.
Achievements are childish, they do nothing other than boosting someone ego.
Blizzard want D3 to be serious game with serious story and i hope more mature content. They better spent time for adding more quests and polish existed one.
Achievements are just abominate quests that give nothing other that "hey, good job pal you done it, here have a cookie" and are dumb easy but hey they are in the end created for console gamers.
Mad Mantis
07-06-2009, 11:28
I've never played a game with achievements that have actually been worth it, or a challenge to get. They just seem to accumulate the more you play...kinda pointless
TF2 has plenty of achievements that are hard to get. Some are ridiculous, but others make you think about the class in a new way. However most games do tend to have moronic achievements.
I like achievements because I am a huge munchkin/packrat. For me they add something else to collect.
PahaLukki
07-06-2009, 11:59
Yeah, playing games is also a huge waste of people's time if you take a look at it :whistling:. Achievements make gamers keep playing and explore content they wouldn't bother with otherwise.
Yeah, you could think that, until people start scraping maps to get cartographer title. How is that playing a game anymore if you are just scraping the edges of maps to reveal some non-walkable land and add that to your exploration title? That's just one of the many ridiculous things put into titles in GW. I also highly recommend a youtube video on defender of ascalon title and how it is achieved (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiqQKO2XH9w). If you want laughs that is. If D3 has achievements they should have at least something to do with playing the game well, and not... insanity.
Though I always wanted to play a non-magic item using character in Diablo. That could be an insane achievement... in fact.. Make it so! :thumbup:
Tanksaabas
07-06-2009, 13:22
Completely useless.
Yeah, you could think that, until people start scraping maps to get cartographer title. How is that playing a game anymore if you are just scraping the edges of maps to reveal some non-walkable land and add that to your exploration title? That's just one of the many ridiculous things put into titles in GW. I also highly recommend a youtube video on defender of ascalon title and how it is achieved (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiqQKO2XH9w). If you want laughs that is. If D3 has achievements they should have at least something to do with playing the game well, and not... insanity.
They need to be ridiculous at times - that's why they're called achievements ;p, especially when you receive a title for completing one - it should be tedious/hard enough for the title to be sort of unique. The bottom line is that the rewards are things just for show and do not change the gameplay, so it isn't mandatory for anyone to get them apart from those who are into that sort of stuff.
Back when the first MMO's came out, quests there were designed to make you spend eternity doing them. The endless grind that gamedesigns started to, or attempted to, move away from with WoW and onwards.
Achievements are actually a return to that time people were puking having to do these quests. Basically the designers efforts, and the gamers desire, to put alot more time into a given game than it's worth apparantly.
Game can't entertain you without achievements. Then what are you still doing there? Partys over, go home.
CaptainDingo
07-06-2009, 16:51
I enjoy achievements, for the most part. Sure, some you get just by playing the game, but some of it is nice statistical information. For Diablo 3, it'd be very feasible to have achievements such as "accumulate 100,000/1,000,000/10,000,000 lifetime monster kills (hey, this is Diablo, you'll have the first one before you know it :P) across all characters".
Plus, this is probably information that Blizzard is already recording. Why not tie them to an achievement?
And just because an achievement is difficult, doesn't mean it has to take a lot of time to code.
A game doesn't have to be incapable of entertaining you without achievements just to have them. That's totally illogical. And for completionists, sometimes it makes what would normally be a less than exciting feat not so boring because they're getting sort of a badge for it, and the happiness of getting the achievement outweighs (generally) what you had to do to get it, which results in net enjoyment for those who want to do it.
And for those who don't want to go out of their way to do them, don't. Achievements are never mandatory.
But the argument that "well even if they only spend a few days on them, that's a few days they could be spending on the fun parts of the game" is kind of flimsy anyways. By that train of thought, they should just stop wasting time on the Wizard and take it out of the game, because I don't want to play one.
Some harsh criticism of Achievements here, huh? Fully in favor of them. Why not, really? People that want to do them will do them, people that don't .. won't. It takes very little development time to implement, and can create quite a bit of replay value for the people that like that stuff.
I think DIII is a much better vessel for Achievements than WoW is.
Brandonn
07-06-2009, 17:57
Yeah, pretty harsh. I had no idea so many people seem to dislike them. It doesn't take anything from the game, it just adds another dimension. They are just for fun. Another thing to collect. Some should be easy, and everyone will earn them regardless. And some can be challenging, and encourage you to explore different aspects of the game. And some can almost be like puzzles, where the description of the achievement isn't quite clear, and you need to figure out how to get it. And it can bring discussion in the community to solve. (Or a trip to Game FAQs :P) Heck, you can even have achievements that you can only earn as a group.
I don't understand the negativity...
Yeah, pretty harsh. I had no idea so many people seem to dislike them. It doesn't take anything from the game, it just adds another dimension. They are just for fun. Another thing to collect. Some should be easy, and everyone will earn them regardless. And some can be challenging, and encourage you to explore different aspects of the game. And some can almost be like puzzles, where the description of the achievement isn't quite clear, and you need to figure out how to get it. And it can bring discussion in the community to solve. (Or a trip to Game FAQs :P) Heck, you can even have achievements that you can only earn as a group.
I don't understand the negativity...
A lot of people associate achievements with mindless grinding for pointless bragging rights, like the criticism against scraping maps to get a Cartographer title. It's a fair criticism, but it's the nature of the beast with these kind of games.. I mean, playing the game at all is a pretty pointless exercise in the grand scheme of things.
I grinded Explorer on WoW, and it was a pain in the neck, but there is a warped sense of satisfaction when you uncover that last parcel of land in the corner of Azeroth.
EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see Achievements in DIII that are much less tedious than Explorer. =P
studyhall
07-06-2009, 18:10
I'm completely in favor.
Also, achievements could have a more in depth role in game play. In the game Tales of Legendia, there was sort of an achievement part where after accomplishing something you could add the title to your character and certain attributes of the character were raised. You can wear only one at a time and I feel that this would be a very viable option for D3. My two cents.
Enigmers
07-06-2009, 18:49
I think PvP-related achievements would be cool, but they should stay out of the regular gameplay. I'd like to be immersed as much as possible into the world of Diablo 3, and it would kinda break the flow of the game to see little pop-up messages with "Achievement Progress" or "Achievement Unlocked!" Unless I'm PvP-ing, I don't think I'd like a game like D3 to remind me that it's a game.
Absolutely despise 'em, since there mostly mere words with no real value or reward behind other than keeping track of how many X you killed with Y in Z minutes or something similar.
Totally pointless.
Besides it would definitely kill the atmosphere, especially in a game like DIII, if there are those messages popping up on the screen when achieving some stupid goal.
The message popping up when you are in a killing spree (saw that in footage of Blizzcon '08 gameplay, I think) and receiving an XP bonus already is hardly bearable so the absolutely last thing I'd like to see is more of those annoying atmosphere killers to occasionally pop up.
studyhall
07-06-2009, 19:43
I think PvP-related achievements would be cool, but they should stay out of the regular gameplay. I'd like to be immersed as much as possible into the world of Diablo 3, and it would kinda break the flow of the game to see little pop-up messages with "Achievement Progress" or "Achievement Unlocked!" Unless I'm PvP-ing, I don't think I'd like a game like D3 to remind me that it's a game.
Why would there have to be a pop up message? When you level up does a message pop up and say that you did so? No.. a subtle button appears. There is no reason something like that couldn't be implemented for this too. Also, they could record your progress outside of the game like the system they have on the Xbox.
SlechtWeerBeer
07-06-2009, 20:31
Why would there have to be a pop up message? When you level up does a message pop up and say that you did so? No.. a subtle button appears. There is no reason something like that couldn't be implemented for this too. Also, they could record your progress outside of the game like the system they have on the Xbox.
Actually, for what we've seen, your character quite literally explodes in a massive lightshow when you level up.
Okay, okay, slightly exaggerated. But it's very visual.
Demetrium
07-06-2009, 23:33
Achievements are, in my opinion, the worst thing to come to gaming within the last few years.
First off, nobody has to dictate to me the goals of/how to play a video game. I can figure this out on my own just fine. If I want to collect every item in a game, I'll go ahead and do it on my own fruition. It doesn't have to be grayed out on some list for me, waiting to be unlocked.
Every ounce of effort put into achievements is time wasted that could have been better spent elsewhere. I don't care if it's more content, more in-game testing, or whatever, but it's certainly more useful than working on achievements. Don't try to argue that achievements are content either --- they aren't. They make use of original content by making you revisit it.
It may be minimal, but achievements have an impact on performance. Achievement to take 50,000 steps? There's a counter sitting there incrementing itself every time you step. Kill 500 enemies in a row without taking damage? There's an if statement running there watching the condition. Sure, these little routines running probably don't really take up too much CPU time, but I don't care. I hate achievements so much if I even lose one frame per second due to them I'll be extremely pissed off.
Achievements typically impact gameplay for the worse. Ever play Team Fortress 2? Ever have your medic not heal you at all and run around trying to stab people with his Bonesaw? He's probably trying to get an achievement. Many achievements are counter-productive and force the player to be doing things that they shouldn't be doing, negatively impacting other people's experiences.
Achievements try to reward you for things you were probably going to do eventually anyway. Congratulations, you got level 50! Congratulations, you died 500 times! Congratulations, you joined 300 games! How could you ever get a sense of accomplishment or gratitude from this? The majority of achievements are nothing but useless time-sinks.
I really, really hate achievements.
CaptainDingo
07-06-2009, 23:34
Did they kill your mother?
I am against achievements, err.. I'm against the way achievements have been implemented in games so far. I don't want some cheesy achievement system where it tracks absolutely useless information only resulting in a comparisson of ePenis size between immature internet kids.
I would, however, like an achievement system that was useful.
As in, using pvp related achievement information to generate a list of players online with similar stats to battle. This information could be used to create rankings in different divisions for ladder tournaments. This could be expanded to include guild vs. guild tournaments and group (2v2, 3v3, etc.) tournys as well.
There are endless possibilities of how achievements could be turned into stats for a useful purpose, instead of the "Congratulations you reached level 10!" Like seriously.. everyone can already see what level you are, do you really need a pat on the back every increment of 10 levels?!? Seems pretty trivial to me.
Every ounce of effort put into achievements is time wasted that could have been better spent elsewhere. I don't care if it's more content, more in-game testing, or whatever, but it's certainly more useful than working on achievements. Don't try to argue that achievements are content either --- they aren't. They make use of original content by making you revisit it.
I enjoy Achievements, and at least half the other posters on this thread do, too. The minimal effort involved isn't useless, IMO.
It may be minimal, but achievements have an impact on performance. Achievement to take 50,000 steps? There's a counter sitting there incrementing itself every time you step. Kill 500 enemies in a row without taking damage? There's an if statement running there watching the condition. Sure, these little routines running probably don't really take up too much CPU time, but I don't care. I hate achievements so much if I even lose one frame per second due to them I'll be extremely pissed off.
Bull and you know it.
Achievements typically impact gameplay for the worse. Ever play Team Fortress 2? Ever have your medic not heal you at all and run around trying to stab people with his Bonesaw? He's probably trying to get an achievement. Many achievements are counter-productive and force the player to be doing things that they shouldn't be doing, negatively impacting other people's experiences.
There's good achievements and bad achievements. However, I've never once had a negative experience in any game because someone was busy trying to net a particular title. In fact, I've had some really amusing experiences because of it, esp. during the WoW holiday events.
Achievements try to reward you for things you were probably going to do eventually anyway. Congratulations, you got level 50! Congratulations, you died 500 times! Congratulations, you joined 300 games! How could you ever get a sense of accomplishment or gratitude from this? The majority of achievements are nothing but useless time-sinks.
It's a mental thing, much like the victory fanfare in Final Fantasy. It doesn't have to be there and you know you're leveling up anyway, but it is an encouraging little tidbit of gaming code. Personally, I enjoy the little pop-ups here and there that remind me of my progress or 'reward' me for doing something above and beyond.
I really, really hate achievements.
A lot of us don't, and for a lot of us, it gives us something else to look forward to besides item-grinding. We can disagree I guess, but I don't see how its inclusion negatively effects someone else's gaming experience.
Some achivements are good.
For example, in WoW I really liked the glory of the hero / raider achievements (I sort of liked them less because you had to rely on 5-25 people actually knowing how to play and being well geared.)
Ultimately I like achievements that indicate you actually did something (for example, an achievement that indicates you completed the game without using any respecs.) over stupid incremental achievements (take 50000000 steps or play for 5000 hours...)
I also favor time based achievements over others, so clear the game in X hours is better than clear the game 100 times.
Demetrium
08-06-2009, 03:59
Bull and you know it.
Go ahead and prove it.
I still don't get how people can complain over something that would be _up to oneself_, you know - the opposite of mandatory?!
And if you knew even the tiniest thing about coding and variables, you would know how very very easy an achievement could be made in the game - it is basically just a visual checkpoint over a hidden or semi-hidden stat/counter that is already there (and at the time of achieving it also is at the right quantity).
And the "ruins the atmosphere"-comment is a bit odd, since there are visual markers and icons and even the leveling system in itself being viewable in the gameworld/at the screen, and if that doesn't bother one, why would an achievements-menu?, it is just as "unrealistic" as the level stats and skills list itself.
And again, more things to do for us that finds it fun, and no obstacle at all for those who choose to not care about them - they would not impair your own gameplay in any way, it could even be possible to make them not show at all with a setting.
+1 for more choice/content (yes, content - by the very literal meaning of the word) and thus: +1 for achievements.
*gives whiners a comforting hug*
/PReP
Demetrium
08-06-2009, 06:02
I still don't get how people can complain over something that would be _up to oneself_, you know - the opposite of mandatory?!
Maybe you should try reading some posts again?
1. Wasted development time spent on achievements
2. Wasted resources spent tracking achievements
3. Possible negative impact in multiplayer scenarios due to achievement persuit
And if you knew even the tiniest thing about coding and variables, you would know how very very easy an achievement could be made in the game - it is basically just a visual checkpoint over a hidden or semi-hidden stat/counter that is already there (and at the time of achieving it also is at the right quantity).
While I am not a computer programmer, I have taken a couple courses in programming and like to think I have a fairly rudimentary idea on the concept of how some of these things work.
Like I said in my original post, for everything that needs to be tracked there's a variable/condition tracking it. Yes, this may seem small, but the fact is you eventually have hundreds of these conditions operating simultaneously. While I can't guarantee this is what may or may not be going on, this is what I imagine:
Achievement: Take 10,000 steps.
Is character moving?
-----Check x,y.last vs x,y.current
What is character's velocity?
-----Check speed variable to determine step amount
Is the character on the ground?
-----Check z plane for ground against character's current x,y, z
Increment step
-----Is step>=10000?
Is the step variable stored locally or going back to a central database? Depends on the type of game. What if it goes back to a central database like in WoW? You have how many clients feeding back all sorts of generic data like this? How often does it get updated? How often is the server checking these values?
Maybe a check isn't that difficult. Maybe they don't care if you're on the ground or what your velocity is. Maybe it's more difficult depending on the achievement? I can't say I know. What I can say I know is that someone spent time on this, and another person spent time inventing the achievement. Both of these guys could be doing more important things with their time.
And again, more things to do for us that finds it fun, and no obstacle at all for those who choose to not care about them - they would not impair your own gameplay in any way, it could even be possible to make them not show at all with a setting.
D3 isnt TF2, but I've already cited a way how this can impact gameplay. Use your imagination.
+1 for more choice/content (yes, content - by the very literal meaning of the word) and thus: +1 for achievements.
Achievements aren't content. If I re-release Pac-Man with a whole bunch of ridiculous checks like "eat 500,000 pellets" or "eat 200 ghosts" or "get 999999 points", have I added any content at all? Before you answer yes --- ask the guy who's already done these things before I added the achievements what his answer is.
I hope we get some kind of diary or log to check what we have done and achieved. Like killed monsters etc.
You just said the same points you did in your last post.
To illustrate the redonkulous factor of being worried about a few variables.. A 2006 hi-end processor can run about 30,000,000,000 IPS (Instructions per second). Determining the cost of tracking achievements is like counting the molecules on a drop of water in a really large bucket. It's immeasurable, like this text-box tracking how many characters I have left before I run out of room.
Anyway, the entire topic of whether or not we'll have achievements is a bit redundant to get fired up about. Feel free to not like them, but you're really grasping at straws for a good reason why they shouldn't be available for the people that do like them and consider them worthwhile. If there wasn't a large sector of gamers that liked achievements, they wouldn't be as popular as they are.
I hope we get some kind of diary or log to check what we have done and achieved. Like killed monsters etc.
I'd love that kind of information to be tracked! Monsters killed, strongest monster killed, preferred weapon-type/spells, PvP kills/deaths, etc. etc. etc.
I'd also like to see an in-game Beastiary that automatically fills out with info as you kill beasts.
100 kills -- Monster page unlocks, portrait unlocks
1000 kills -- History of the monster
2500 kills -- Monster weaknesses
5000 kills -- Random reward. Maybe some type of damage buff against the monster, or an item-drop % buff for that particular beast? Or maybe even an item that is lore-specific to that creature?
Oh yes, this I would love.
Demetrium
08-06-2009, 06:43
To illustrate the redonkulous factor of being worried about a few variables.. A 2006 hi-end processor can run about 30,000,000,000 IPS (Instructions per second). Determining the cost of tracking achievements is like counting the molecules on a drop of water in a really large bucket. It's immeasurable, like this text-box tracking how many characters I have left before I run out of room.
I'd really love to know why when WoW implemented achievements the whole game ran like total garbage for days. I guess updating all of those variables at once took a toll on their backend?
Feel free to not like them, but you're really grasping at straws for a good reason why they shouldn't be available for the people that do like them and consider them worthwhile.
While you think I'm grasping at straws I think it's silly you need to check items off on a digital laundry list. To each his own.
I'd really love to know why when WoW implemented achievements the whole game ran like total garbage for days. I guess updating all of those variables at once took a toll on their backend?
You earn "Straw Man Achievement".
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_3.0.2
It probably ran like garbage because patch 3.02 was one of the largest to date, involved opening up an entire new part of Stormwind, the Calendar system, the Achievement system, the moving of Dalaran, avatar hair customization, new talent trees, and about 25 more pages of changes. Also, WoW has a tendency to run like garbage after patches.
While you think I'm grasping at straws I think it's silly you need to check items off on a digital laundry list. To each his own.
Fair enough.. I like my digital laundry list. :]
Brandonn
08-06-2009, 07:03
Wow! Look at all the feedback on this topic!
:smug: Brandonn has achieved Cause a stir. +5 Points :thumbup:
It sounds like the people here against achievements aren't just against them in D3, they just don't like them at all - in anything.
I'm gonna repeat something I said before. Achievements can add a new layer of depth to a game. The fist time through, you may not even pay attention to them. Maybe you even earn a few by happenstance. But eventually, you'll be able to go through and try to earn them, try to find all the "elite" monsters. Or complete 50 unrequired quests, maybe find the unicorn... It's just another thing to do. You shouldn't really complain that it's pointless, because the whole dam thing is pointless - come on - it's a game! It's all about the journey.
How many of you tried to beat Quake 2 with just the blaster? Well I did! Now where is my badge?
Edit: My ePenis is bigger.
Tracked stats would be pretty cool, more useful than achievements :p
some rpg's usually have a ridiculously detailed stats page, that would be interesting in D3.
Maybe you should try reading some posts again?
1. Wasted development time spent on achievements
2. Wasted resources spent tracking achievements
3. Possible negative impact in multiplayer scenarios due to achievement persuit
While I am not a computer programmer, I have taken a couple courses in programming and like to think I have a fairly rudimentary idea on the concept of how some of these things work.
Like I said in my original post, for everything that needs to be tracked there's a variable/condition tracking it. Yes, this may seem small, but the fact is you eventually have hundreds of these conditions operating simultaneously. While I can't guarantee this is what may or may not be going on, this is what I imagine:
Achievement: Take 10,000 steps.
Is character moving?
-----Check x,y.last vs x,y.current
What is character's velocity?
-----Check speed variable to determine step amount
Is the character on the ground?
-----Check z plane for ground against character's current x,y, z
Increment step
-----Is step>=10000?
Is the step variable stored locally or going back to a central database? Depends on the type of game. What if it goes back to a central database like in WoW? You have how many clients feeding back all sorts of generic data like this? How often does it get updated? How often is the server checking these values?
Maybe a check isn't that difficult. Maybe they don't care if you're on the ground or what your velocity is. Maybe it's more difficult depending on the achievement? I can't say I know. What I can say I know is that someone spent time on this, and another person spent time inventing the achievement. Both of these guys could be doing more important things with their time.
D3 isnt TF2, but I've already cited a way how this can impact gameplay. Use your imagination.
Achievements aren't content. If I re-release Pac-Man with a whole bunch of ridiculous checks like "eat 500,000 pellets" or "eat 200 ghosts" or "get 999999 points", have I added any content at all? Before you answer yes --- ask the guy who's already done these things before I added the achievements what his answer is.
First of, you are right in that some obscure achievements might be a little bit more work than others, but in most cases i would say nope.
There are two things that nags me with your reply though, and usually i would just shrug my shoulders and let it be, but i am tired and very grouchy right now :)
1. You pick out the beginning of my statement about how this process wouldn't slow the project of making diablo 3 much at all, like i did not give my reasoning for it - not doing so.
But yet, you at the same time acknowledge my motivation/explanation for the first part as a whole with your second reply.
2. You need not only to look up the word _content_, but also the word _literal_ - "in the literal sense" = what i means, not what one thinks.
This can't really be argued ;)
Now this lizard WILL sleep before he starts lashing out blindly with his tail against everything in a lack-of-sleep-fit. :p
Good night, and thanks for all the fish.
/PReP
Go ahead and prove it.Ok, simple, when they added achievements about 90% of my counters didn't start at 0 ;)
Do some searching before you start coming here with bull****, they've said it before and it's obvious that most of the data used for achievements was already in their database.
As for game running like **** when they added them I can be short :
Don't you think a LOT of people came back when they found out about them? I ended up with a queue on my realm that wasn't there for the longest time.
I'm surprized that the support for them is higher here than at the official forum. I hope they won't be in. What I wouldn't mind is a journal type thing that keeps up with stats. Like "Total Enemies Killed" and tracks how many of each type.
PahaLukki
08-06-2009, 10:45
The biggest problem with achievements is when they cross that treshold into mechanical gameplay advantage (no matter how insignificant!), giving everyone the incentive to grind them out, and eventually affecting the overall balance of the game. As long as that doesn't happen, I don't think some statistics on characters is going to bother anyone..
I still despise achievements for their, imho utter pointlessness (and it certainly is) BUT if all this tracking stuff is kept absolutely silent in the background with no pop-ups or anything distracting going on on the screen then, and only then I probably could live with it.
Demetrium
08-06-2009, 15:53
I'm gonna repeat something I said before. Achievements can add a new layer of depth to a game. The fist time through, you may not even pay attention to them. Maybe you even earn a few by happenstance. But eventually, you'll be able to go through and try to earn them, try to find all the "elite" monsters. Or complete 50 unrequired quests, maybe find the unicorn... It's just another thing to do. You shouldn't really complain that it's pointless, because the whole dam thing is pointless - come on - it's a game! It's all about the journey.
How many of you tried to beat Quake 2 with just the blaster? Well I did! Now where is my badge?
I still don't understand why you couldn't do these things before they were achievements. Your Quake 2 example is a demonstration of how people will do these things independently if they feel like it. They don't need encouragement. I killed Hitler in Wolfenstine using only the pistol when I was like 8 years old. Why? I guess I was bored and wanted to test my own skill. It wasn't sitting on some list that I felt compelled to cross every line off of.
Call me pretentious, but a predominant reason why achievements drive me up a wall is the metrics they use:
"Do every 1750 quests in Eastern Kingdoms" - Timesink
"Win a duel" - This was going to happen anyway
"Die to every class once in Warsong Gulch" - This is something to be proud of?
Don't get me wrong --- I definitely think there are some things that deserve to be tracked. I'm sure everyone has different opinions, but I feel achievements should be only significant milestones such as:
Obtain gladiator in an arena season
Obtain High Warlord
Realm first boss defeat
In a lot of cases I don't think these milestones even need to be tracked by achievements. If you get gladiator in WoW you get a fast mount, a title, and recorded on the website. High Warlord got you a title and some of the best weapons available at the time.
When I played WoW as a competitive raider, I honestly felt cheated by achievements. More and more they started designing boss encounters around them to try and prolong content when it was already coming out at a torpid pace. To me it seemed like an excuse more than anything to release 1 boss with alternate winning conditions then to actually go through the trouble of designing a second boss, or even just doing a better job on the encounter in general. Who wants to blow through a dungeon in a week because all the encounters are super easy, just to spend the next 3 months beating the same fights a different way? I don't. They should have been difficult to begin with.
I guess it all really boils down to what you find personally as a source of enjoyment. If you find getting every tailoring recipe in a game satisfying, I can't stop you but I also don't think you deserve to have any recognition for it. That being said, I feel if you did something truly recognizable, you'll remember it without it being on some list and the people around you will acknowledge it as well.
When I played WoW as a competitive raider, I honestly felt cheated by achievements. More and more they started designing boss encounters around them to try and prolong content when it was already coming out at a torpid pace. To me it seemed like an excuse more than anything to release 1 boss with alternate winning conditions then to actually go through the trouble of designing a second boss, or even just doing a better job on the encounter in general. Who wants to blow through a dungeon in a week because all the encounters are super easy, just to spend the next 3 months beating the same fights a different way? I don't. They should have been difficult to begin with.
This is totally unrelated to the thread's topic, but briefly ... Hard Mode boss achievements were implemented so that casuals could experience end-game content while competitive raiding guilds still had a way to challenge themselves for extra reward/incentive. I think something like 15% of the player-base ever even saw Illidan, which is clearly a problem from a gameplay and development standpoint. If you're worried about wasting development time, it doesn't get much worse than spending months to create a dungeon that only a fraction of the player-base ever sees.
I guess it all really boils down to what you find personally as a source of enjoyment.
/thread.
There are no such achievements in WoW as "Die to every class once in Warsong Gulch". And I've seen lvl 80s with 0 honorable kills, so not everyone gets easy achievements eventually.
They can be a great source of information about a player - I wouldn't team up for arena with someone who doesn't even have an honorable kill or no achievements from battlegrounds.
Timesink is something many achievements aim for. It provides additional stuff to do, which many find fun. And since achievements are easy to code, don't take much of the resources and provide an additional layer to the game, even while being meaningless (gaming is also meaningless as someone already pointed out), then including them is good choice. What's even better, those who don't like them needn't complete them. A win-win.
Brandonn
09-06-2009, 03:40
@Demetrium
I understand most your points. It sounds like you had a bad experience with them - to the point it ruined part of the game for you.
If Blizzard were to add in Achievements, but made a toggle so they wouldn't show, unless you wanted them to, would you still not like it? I mean, they'd be there for those that like them, and could be essentially hidden for those that don't.
I don't necessarily like "timesink" achievements. Then again, something like "kill 100 monsters" I wouldn't go out just to do it, as I know it would happen eventually, but it would be satisfying for me when that little badge pops up with a picture of a sad fallen.
I never thought of achievements as "recognition". I know the title is "achievements" but that's not how I see them. I don't like them because someone is saying good job. I like them because I think they are fun little trinkets to collect. Heck, I don't play ANY game to get recognition, it's a dam game. I live in the real world, I have a wife and kids and a job, if I want recognition, I'll do something in one of those worlds.
Games I play for fun, and if achievements can make D3 more fun, I say add it in. If most people honestly don't like it, I'd rather Blizz not add it in. I was more excited to talk about _what_ achievements people could think of, but the topic never went that direction - that's ok...
Anyway, I think I'm off topic of my own topic - I can't tell.
If you think about it D2 already has achievements because after you defeat baal (LoD) in normal you become Slayer *InsertCharNameHere* Then in nm i think its matriarchal or something. You get one for every difficulty. Basically you "achieve" a title for defeating baal.
Good achievements are incentives to play the game in ways not immediately obvious; completing the game in hardcore, completing the game naked, completing the game in a limited period of time with no trading, complete the game with only DoT damage, complete the game with a barbarian using only ranged weapons, complete the game with a sorceress using non direct-damage skills, and so on. They have no material benefit but and preferably do not encourage elitism, instead serving to nudge - but not compel - players towards ways they may extend the life of the game.
Bad achievements are counters that reward doing the same thing repetitively or have significant non-cosmetic benefits.
Honestly I'm generally wary of excess reliance on meta in games because it's symptiomatic of a game designed for casuals, favouring superficial hooks over solid core gameplay, depth or challenge. Great when done well though - example which does achievements right. (http://www.kongregate.com/games/innocuousGames/amorphous)
Demetrium
09-06-2009, 05:08
@Demetrium
If Blizzard were to add in Achievements, but made a toggle so they wouldn't show, unless you wanted them to, would you still not like it? I mean, they'd be there for those that like them, and could be essentially hidden for those that don't.
Unfortunately, yes. Look at it this way. You go to this awesome steakhouse and get a delicious steak with a side of rice pilaf. The steak is amazing. You love it. The bad news is, you're not a fan of rice pilaf --- you don't eat it at all. Don't you wish you could trade it for even the smallest mouthful of steak?
Someone, if not a few people, are spending their time inventing and implementing achievements in D3, a game I've been looking forward to forever. This one person could be doing so many other things to improve the game. Class balance, item creation, bug testing, full body massages for Jay Wilson. Heck, he could not be employed at all and Blizzard could pay the other designers another $500/yr.
D3 is my steak, and I would give up a heaping bowl of achievements for one more tiny mouthful.
Brandonn
09-06-2009, 09:35
Well, I'd easily give up achievements if it meant the game coming out a month earlier. But you have to be careful with that thinking, because sometimes games do come out before they are ready with stuff cut, and the game is no good. However D3 will be great with or without achievements. But Blizzard will do whatever they think is best, and they won't release it until they feel it's done. So I'm not worried. But I can defiantly understand that concern, I want D3 now! :)
In terms programming/designing adding another person to the project doesn't always mean it will get done quicker and there's also the chance that the person coming up with achievements is a creative genius but no good at fixing bugs.
I think Blizzard knows what they're doing :)
@skyf :
Very true, forgot about that :D
CaptainDingo
09-06-2009, 10:56
Unfortunately, yes. Look at it this way. You go to this awesome steakhouse and get a delicious steak with a side of rice pilaf. The steak is amazing. You love it. The bad news is, you're not a fan of rice pilaf --- you don't eat it at all. Don't you wish you could trade it for even the smallest mouthful of steak?
Someone, if not a few people, are spending their time inventing and implementing achievements in D3, a game I've been looking forward to forever. This one person could be doing so many other things to improve the game. Class balance, item creation, bug testing, full body massages for Jay Wilson. Heck, he could not be employed at all and Blizzard could pay the other designers another $500/yr.
D3 is my steak, and I would give up a heaping bowl of achievements for one more tiny mouthful.
Of course, then you're denying other people pilaf just because you don't like it, and are turning it into what only you want.
I hate to have to be the fly of logic buzzing annoyingly, but Blizzard is filthy rich. If they don't have enough manpower to put achievements into the game without taking resources away from other areas, they'll just hire another guy to do it.
It's not that hard.
Demetrium
09-06-2009, 15:02
Of course, then you're denying other people pilaf just because you don't like it, and are turning it into what only you want.
I also don't expect people to be ordering a steak with rice, peas, corn, potatoes, salad, asparagus, and squash. It's unrealistic and detracts from the meal. Of course there are going to be some things I don't want in the game that other people do. I'm just explaining my thoughts on this feature and my reasons for having them. This is one of the things these forums are traditionally used for.
I hate to have to be the fly of logic buzzing annoyingly, but Blizzard is filthy rich. If they don't have enough manpower to put achievements into the game without taking resources away from other areas, they'll just hire another guy to do it.
It's not that hard.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. I think its safe to say, for various reasons, their development resources are not unlimited. Again, any energy spent on achievements is a waste of time, effort, and resources in my opinion. Its very unlikely you'll be able to convince me otherwise.
Games are for fun, for people to enjoy themselves.
I alone know several that enjoy themselves with achievements (including myself).
How can it be a waste of time when it does what it has to do.
Again, any energy spent on achievements is a waste of time, effort, and resources in my opinion. Its very unlikely you'll be able to convince me otherwise.
That's just wonderful, because absolutely no one has too. Achievements are going to be in, people who enjoy them will be happy, and you will keep grumbling about wasted resources. There is a reason every other company jumped on this "fad." Most people seem to enjoy the concept. As far as Blizzard is concerned, this makes implementation of achievements a worthy endeavor.
Most people are dumbasses too.
Teleportation
10-06-2009, 01:07
Most people are dumbasses too.
Boohoo. :alright:
Edeas_Knight
10-06-2009, 05:29
Really guys? Complaining about achievements? If you do not like them you can either ignore them or just not "waste" your time to complete them.
The way I see it, achievements don't hurt anyone, but some, if not most people(myself included) like them. They can give you something different to do instead of normal mfing/leveling/dungeon runs etc. It can break up some of the monotony of a game after you have been playing it for a while. I agree, some achievements are kinda ridiculous/time sink that I would probably never bother with,(exploring all of the eastern kingdoms/kalimdor in WoW rings a bell) some people love this kinda thing and will not stop playing until they get that achievement.
From a company standpoint that is great. You have someone playing for hours, maybe days just to complete one of hundreds of possible achievements. You are keeping the customer without adding any additional content, just a challenge.
And as long as achievements don't give any real advantage over players who haven't completed them such as a title, cosmetic differences ,etc., what's the big deal?
what's the big deal?
I think the problem is that the people who choose not to spend their hours completing countless tasks will have an apparent lower status than those who do. Even though most of those tasks that have been completed have really nothing to do with being good at the game.
It is only fuel to fire the e-penis competitions and could quite possibly ruin the cohesiveness of co-op play that Blizzard is trying to encourage. In my previous post I stated how I think a useful "achievement" system could work for pvp. It is actually just an intuitive ranking system, but I really hope we don't get subjected to pointless tasks to increase our "battle.net score."
what's the big deal?
Implementation is everything with achievement systems, and it does take design and development resources to implement. The supporters of the achievement system try and dismiss the resource load as trivial, or claim that some kid out of college could do it, which is simply not true. The brainstorming acitivity for the list of potential achievments alone took the entire design team, an Activision marketing person, and at least one member of the group that is actually coding the system no less than 4 hours, and potentially as long as 2 *days* to complete. That was just brainstorming a list. Then you have to actually design the system, write the documentation, get the design approved, and get the system coded. This amount of resources is not trivial in any way. So, for my money, if the choice comes down to more items, zones, quests, mobs, bosses, or contriavance "content" designed to provide what every great videogame has had inherently (replayability), I chose the real content.
The negative effect of achievements in forums, etc. is self-evident, so I won't go through a long-winded arguement to prove it...just go look at the WoW forums.
I suppose, if you have to waste the resources anyway, so long as the achievement system can be turned off, I can't really offer much resistance to the system's inclusion. Just please don't come back 6 months after release asking where all the content is because you know where it is.
mrschofield
10-06-2009, 14:42
Did anyone else play Mythos in beta (before its' tragic end)? I think they implemented achievements as well as any game I've ever played.
The game played just like D2, with a lot of bosses being killed repeatedly (but a much larger variety of bosses), so a lot of the achievements were something like:
-Spiderslayer - killed spider boss 10 times - +10% damage to spider class
-Healer - used 500 potions - +5 vitality
And this is where it got good.. you had a certain number of "achievement slots". And you got a new slot for every 10 levels. So at level 20, you could have the bonuses from 3 achievements, but by then you probably had 15-20 to choose from, so there were a lot of customization possibilities.
Demetrium
10-06-2009, 18:40
Did anyone else play Mythos in beta (before its' tragic end)? I think they implemented achievements as well as any game I've ever played.
The game played just like D2, with a lot of bosses being killed repeatedly (but a much larger variety of bosses), so a lot of the achievements were something like:
-Spiderslayer - killed spider boss 10 times - +10% damage to spider class
-Healer - used 500 potions - +5 vitality
And this is where it got good.. you had a certain number of "achievement slots". And you got a new slot for every 10 levels. So at level 20, you could have the bonuses from 3 achievements, but by then you probably had 15-20 to choose from, so there were a lot of customization possibilities.
This is a thing I really don't like about achievements. I am very much against rewarding someone based purely on repetition, or time. Diablo 1 gave you information about the monsters, their damage, resistances, etc based on kills (which I am completely fine with) but innate bonuses do not float my boat.
Did anyone else play Mythos in beta (before its' tragic end)? I think they implemented achievements as well as any game I've ever played.
The game played just like D2, with a lot of bosses being killed repeatedly (but a much larger variety of bosses), so a lot of the achievements were something like:
-Spiderslayer - killed spider boss 10 times - +10% damage to spider class
-Healer - used 500 potions - +5 vitality
And this is where it got good.. you had a certain number of "achievement slots". And you got a new slot for every 10 levels. So at level 20, you could have the bonuses from 3 achievements, but by then you probably had 15-20 to choose from, so there were a lot of customization possibilities.
I hated the achievement system in mythos :( It was my one gripe about the game.
Simply because so many of the achievements involved such meaningless repetition, or weren't actually achievements (squishing 100 spiders? Really? Breaking 25 barrels? Seriously that's an "achievement"?)
In any case, it can't be denied using achievements as a means for character customization seems an interesting idea.
Achievements really have two parts.
1) How are they earned?
2) What do they do?
In the xbox titles I've played, the answer for 2 is nothing. The answer for 1 is slightly more complex, and has three answers:
a) playing the game as normal (f/i: complete level 1)
b) completing some arbitrary challenge (f/i: beat the spider boss with only the pistol)
c) fill up a mundane quota (f/i: beat the game 10 times)
I don't think anyone sees value in a), and I'd bet most people get most of their value in b). So if we weed out these, then we have, in the scope of xbox:
1) complete an arbitrary challenge
2) nothing happens
Now, an example of a game I've seen break this mold is Team Fortress 2. When you complete a certain number of achievements, you get this new weapon. TF2 had achievements from all three categories of varying dedication to get. Now, TF2 is a multiplayer-based game, so there exist a couple challenges in this unlockable content:
i) the weapons cannot provide a clear advantage over 'default' weapons. This would force players to fulfill these arbitrary tasks in order to be on the same level as those who do (tf2 was less than successful here)
ii) the unlockable content must be desirable - folks need a reason to earn these weapons. This must not violate i).
This is not a hard task from the developer's point of view - it's easy to nerf the damage of something an add a random mod with the advantage "about equal" to the damage nerf. From the player's perspective, it can be plenty frustrating, as we complain about the backburner giving NO reason to use the default pyro weapon, or the cloak+dagger being a neccessity to be a viable spy. But this isn't where the problems lie either.
The problem is this: The game is asking the players to devote time to these achievements in order to experience the full game. THAT is the problem with any sort of reward being put next to an achievement. If I have to kill Duriel 20 times in order to get the 'homing arrow' ability, and I'm a fan of the game, then guess what: I have to kill Duriel 20 times.
So what if we assume that criteria a) and c) for achivements are gone, and simply 'complete a challenging task' is left? Well, a player may look at this and say "why should I?" I want to tear stuff up as a barbarian, I want to beat the game, I want to get whirlwind, I want to go back and run the Pits again. I can do any of these, fulfilling my WANTS.
Then comes this part: I want to get as much HP as possible. Well, now I have to beat catacombs in under 4 minutes.
See the difference? You're not letting me make my own task and beat it, you're holding a carrot in front of me and telling me a task I have to make. I'm going to borrow this analogy from David Wong:
Humans only find repetition enjoyable when they choose it.
Let's say you sit on your bed one afternoon and, out of boredom, fling playing cards at a hat for two hours straight, just to pass the time. You amuse yourself trying to hit 10 in a row.
Now imagine it's later in the evening and you're about to have sex with your girl. Suddenly she sits up and says, "Wait! We can't do it until you fling 10 cards into that hat over there! It's a rule in the obscure religion I practice!"
Will you enjoy the card flinging this time? No, and in fact the repetition you found enjoyable before will become maddening, as you flip cards around your frustrated, wilting manhood.
This is what happens when desirable bonuses are given through achivements.
So, after all this, what are we left with? Criteria b), complete an arbitrary challenging task, and result 2) nothing happens. E-peen, leaderboards, whatever. Now we're not even talking about achivements, we're talking about a high score list, which should be handled differently, if at all.
SlechtWeerBeer
10-06-2009, 19:51
Achievements really have two parts.
1) How are they earned?
2) What do they do?
In the xbox titles I've played, the answer for 2 is nothing. The answer for 1 is slightly more complex, and has three answers:
<snip>
I take it you didn't play Mass Effect, then? :p
Some achievements got you a boost to either damage, shield, health and possibly other things (Don't recall completely) on every career/character. It was a nice touch, because it made subsequent playthroughs (on higher difficulty settings) a tidbit easier. Iirc, the max you could get from those achievements in terms of Health was +15%. That would be quite a lot for a multiplayer game, though.. 3000 -> 3450. 450 health can save your ***.
Anyhow, I kinda like achievements (time sink, whee?), but won't miss 'em if they're not in.
I take it you didn't play Mass Effect, then? :p
Some achievements got you a boost to either damage, shield, health and possibly other things (Don't recall completely) on every career/character. It was a nice touch, because it made subsequent playthroughs (on higher difficulty settings) a tidbit easier. Iirc, the max you could get from those achievements in terms of Health was +15%. That would be quite a lot for a multiplayer game, though.. 3000 -> 3450. 450 health can save your ***.
Anyhow, I kinda like achievements (time sink, whee?), but won't miss 'em if they're not in.
Hi, the rest of my post addresses this directly.
If anyone has any serious criticism of immaterial achievements that challenge players in ways outside the usual course of play or to a lesser extent through non-repetitive optimisation such as speedruns, I'd be interested to hear it. Although the latter case is starting to enter territory with some slight potential for fostering elitism, I must point out that, even allowing as given the questionable validity of such a complaint, that this has extremely limited application where achievements cannot be 'worn', i.e. made visible to other players without using apps external to the game.
Look at some of the achievements of members of the single player community here at diii. These range from the vanilla patting of each class type to completing the game on a naked zon (Superdave) and collecting various standards of grails. Most of these have nothing to do with epeen, scoreboards, or "+5 to vita"; they simply represent some of the ways in which many players have found to extend the life of the game. Yet here something that constitutes at the least little more than a suggestion list for ways players to increase their variety of play and challenge themselves receives such vitriolic criticism?
It seems many here will often rush to dichotomise of resource assignment in game creation. Certainly there is more work in implementing and debugging achievements than some in this thread would suggest but, just as critics of easter eggs are wrong to directly correlate any novelty material to lost serious content, it's a gross misrepresentation to equate time spent brainstorming fun and interesting ways to play the game to time spent coding an extra iteration of an enemy model.
Personally, I find achievements worthless and a waste of time, even when there's a reward for them. Ultimately, I view achievements as a bandaid for deficiencies in the core game. If the core is good, there's no need for achievements.
Personally, I find achievements worthless and a waste of time, even when there's a reward for them. Ultimately, I view achievements as a bandaid for deficiencies in the core game. If the core is good, there's no need for achievements.
I completely agree :thumbup:
Vitamins
11-06-2009, 12:36
An achievement system can quickly become monotonous if the achievements are too easy to obtain, or if the achievements are inevitably obtained without difficulty. Although achievements for reaching level 10, 30, 50, etc., could be interesting because they could be used as a record for your progress. But achievements like “YOU DISCOVERED THE WETLANDS!” (WoW reference) are pointless because it’s something you’d achieve by just playing the game. Really, who cares about discovering a common area for the 100th time on your 100th alt? “You unlocked the achievement: Turning On Your Computer! Congratulations!” A cool achievement would be killing a certain monster a certain number of times within a specified time, provided the feat was actually challenging and not something everyone can do.
As for the people who say an achievement system is just about boosting players’ e-tits: What’s your problem with competition? There are people who like to compete, win, maybe be awarded, and then brag about it. So what? If you don’t want to grind a monster or do so-and-so for said achievement, then don’t, but don’t limit everybody else’s options by trying to prevent such a system from being implemented in the first place. That’s just selfish. It’s not like we’re talking about a mind-boggling complicated system that’s going to soak up lots of development time and money. Moreover, such systems are not mandatory (at least they shouldn't be) and they in no way "dictate" how people play games. That's just a ridiculous exaggeration.
Look at some of the achievements of members of the single player community here at diii. These range from the vanilla patting of each class type to completing the game on a naked zon (Superdave) and collecting various standards of grails. Most of these have nothing to do with epeen, scoreboards, or "+5 to vita"; they simply represent some of the ways in which many players have found to extend the life of the game. Yet here something that constitutes at the least little more than a suggestion list for ways players to increase their variety of play and challenge themselves receives such vitriolic criticism?
Why, if a person is so hellbent on playing the game an alternate way, does that person need auditory and visual fellatio to validate the way they are playing?
Why, for that matter, does a person playing the way the designers intended need auditory and visual fellatio to validate that they are doing the right things? You'd think progressing through the game would be enough.
Vitamins
11-06-2009, 14:07
Why, if a person is so hellbent on playing the game an alternate way, does that person need auditory and visual fellatio to validate the way they are playing?
Why, for that matter, does a person playing the way the designers intended need auditory and visual fellatio to validate that they are doing the right things? You'd think progressing through the game would be enough.
There's some irony here. All videogames use autitory and visual cues as well as rewards for stimulation and entertainment purposes. In fact... that's how progress is measured in videogames. So, your line of logic argues against an achievement system, but also the very idea of games. Good job.
There's some irony here. All videogames use autitory and visual cues as well as rewards for stimulation and entertainment purposes. In fact... that's how progress is measured in videogames. So, your line of logic argues against an achievement system, but also the very idea of games. Good job.
This is true if and only if the game can only be played one way, completely linearly. This is not the case with Diablo 3.
Look at Final Fantasy 1. Some people beat it with a single white mage - that's friggin hard. I'm sure it was quite a puzzle to solve (before guides came out) and folks wondered if it was possible.
What if there was an achivement "beat the game with a single white mage"? Well, you're basically in the same position, except now you KNOW its possible, AND the developers have already done it, so we've already detracted something from the experience.
I love coming up with challenges for games and fulfilling them, I dont see why I need the game developers to come up with a list of challenges - it feels very condescending when "Clear the catacombs in 4 minutes" is right next to "Open a treasure chest".
Basically, if it's an achievement, then the developers have made sure it's doable by most people - and if it's doable by most people, then it's hardly an 'achievement'. It's just a task that you have been asked to do for no reason.
There's some irony here. All videogames use autitory and visual cues as well as rewards for stimulation and entertainment purposes. In fact... that's how progress is measured in videogames. So, your line of logic argues against an achievement system, but also the very idea of games. Good job.
Precisely. A game is all about achievements, whether they are explicit in the form of an Achievements System, or implicit in the form of Game Objectives, Questing, item hunting, etc...
Why having both (and on top of that making one of them entirely optional) is a matter for visceral criticism is really beyond me. Perhaps it's the new fad... Criticize Achievements! Just do it! Nike style!
Personally, I'm ok both ways. With or without. Would like for them to be implemented since I always played Diablo with some sort of a personal Achievements system. But if they are not, I'm not going to lose my sleep.
Why having both (and on top of that making one of them entirely optional) is a matter for visceral criticism is really beyond me. Perhaps it's the new fad... Criticize Achievements! Just do it! Nike style!
Maybe you should read some of the posts in this topic before you try to be the voice of reason.
I have, of course. In fact I posted pretty early on the thread. This will take a few more pages of empy argumenting. So page 4 is really just the start. In any case, I have been following the debate, thank you. And none of the arguments so far convinced me. So... to be perfectly clear, I'll repeat...
Why having both (and on top of that making one of them entirely optional) is a matter for visceral criticism is really beyond me. Perhaps it's the new fad... Criticize Achievements! Just do it! Nike style!
Why having both (and on top of that making one of them entirely optional) is a matter for visceral criticism is really beyond me
In this case I must take issue with your reading comprehension. Points have been raised stating precisely that.
-takes development time away from other areas
-patronizes 'outside-the-box' play
-distracts players from the core game, especially in the context of co-op
these are just off the top of my head. If you like them, fine, but if your argument is "the other side hasn't said anything!" then you just look foolish.
Knight_Wolf
11-06-2009, 20:15
In this case I must take issue with your reading comprehension. Points have been raised stating precisely that.
-takes development time away from other areas
-patronizes 'outside-the-box' play
-distracts players from the core game, especially in the context of co-op
these are just off the top of my head. If you like them, fine, but if your argument is "the other side hasn't said anything!" then you just look foolish.
-Sigh .. the whole take development time argument doesn't really make much sense .. the game doesn't have a set release date and as we know it is ready when it is ready ... so they have enough time to develop everything they want the way they want it .... and achievements specially are simple tweaks on existing code or formulas in the game ..... no big deal at all compared to the other time consuming process in the game making process.
Actually i expect a ton of new achievements with every new patch ... it's no big deal at all really.
-Out of the Box gameplay will happen one way or another .... specially that some people like a fresh challenge or something new to do (like playing the game in a new way after getting bored of the normal way) ... so why not make it worth while for them as well.
-Wow .. we aren't a 5 years old kids ... if anyone doesn't care about achievements he/she can easily steer clear of them, those who want them and don't want Co-Op will either way do their thing ... those who want Co-Op will play Co-Op because they WANT to not because there are no achievements.
Knight_Wolf pretty much addressed it. I have nothing much more to add.
Arguments against Achievements are very weak and seem like desperate attempts to give some meaning to what is essentially a fortuitous distaste for Achievements.
but if your argument is "the other side hasn't said anything!" then you just look foolish.
I think this is I who should take issue with your reading comprehension. Instead of immediately moving on to the attack, check your defenses. What I said was that I didn't agree with the arguments against Achievements.
-Sigh .. the whole take development time argument doesn't really make much sense .. the game doesn't have a set release date and as we know it is ready when it is ready ... so they have enough time to develop everything they want the way they want it .... and achievements specially are simple tweaks on existing code or formulas in the game ..... no big deal at all compared to the other time consuming process in the game making process.
Actually i expect a ton of new achievements with every new patch ... it's no big deal at all really.
No big deal? You are basing this off what exactly?
This same (faulty) argument could be used to support absolutely any theoretical feature. The point is implementing ANYTHING (including achievements) is never trivial. There's brainstorming, design, development, core testing, implementation, QA, redesign, and documentation. ALL of this is required, and none of it is trivial.
Why not have a 'make your own class'? Why not have alternative color palletes? Why not have a map editor? Why not have an extra 'joke' class?
Because it's not as good as other things that should be in the game.
I hate to break your illusion, but Blizzard is a company seeking to make money, and like it or not, their games DO have a deadline. It might be far away, but there is a point where it becomes more harmful to wait than to release it, and at that point they will release it.
-Out of the Box gameplay will happen one way or another .... specially that some people like a fresh challenge or something new to do (like playing the game in a new way after getting bored of the normal way) ... so why not make it worth while for them as well.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. People like fresh challenges and making up their own gameplay, this is true. This is, however, counter-intuitive to achievements which simply grant the user another list of things to do.
Make it worth their while? Are you implying rewards for achievements now? Because I wrote a pretty long post about why that's a horrible idea.
-Wow .. we aren't a 5 years old kids ... if anyone doesn't care about achievements he/she can easily steer clear of them, those who want them and don't want Co-Op will either way do their thing ... those who want Co-Op will play Co-Op because they WANT to not because there are no achievements.
Ever play TF2 after one of the class updates?
"why didn't you heal me?"
"im trying to get the 'win a round without healing anyone' achievement"
If you don't see any potential of this in D3, I ask you to come up with a list of achievements you would like to see that will not create a similar situation.
Knight_Wolf pretty much addressed it. I have nothing much more to add.
Arguments against Achievements are very weak and seem like desperate attempts to give some meaning to what is essentially a fortuitous distaste for Achievements.
I think this is I who should take issue with your reading comprehension. Instead of immediately moving on to the attack, check your defenses. What I said was that I didn't agree with the arguments against Achievements.
You actually haven't posted anything in this thread in support of achievements. You have said, basically
"it cannot be argued that achivements are interesting"
"i agree, achivements are good"
and this post.
Check my defenses? You're not responding to any of my points! How can you claim a strong position when you refuse to engage the other side? You're basically holding your fingers in your ears saying "no you're wrong, they're good".
There's plenty of anti-achievement points in this thread and you haven't specifically taken issue with any of them, you've just swept them all aside as "not good enough". That makes you as reputable as someone who has not even read the thread.
There's plenty of anti-achievement points in this thread and you haven't specifically taken issue with any of them, you've just swept them all aside as "not good enough". That makes you as reputable as someone who has not even read the thread.
Do I really look like I care what you think of me?
When your first post in reply to what I was saying was "Maybe you should read some of the posts in this topic before you try to be the voice of reason", I lost all and any interest in debating with you. You will simply not listen, because you can't even properly read what is being said.
Knight_Wolf already addressed these issues. My words exactly. You don't want me to go any deeper into this. Your reply to him immediately revealed your utter lack of knowledge on how a software is developed and a gaming company plans and delimits a game project.
Going any further will only embarrass you. Are you sure you really want me to do that? Think twice before replying. Contrary to you, I'm not in the business of speaking of things I don't know. I suggest you reevaluate your position, particular on the issue of the complexity of developing an Achievements system. Either you know exactly what you are talking about and allow me to crush your argument to the crap pit where it shouldn't ever have left, or you admit you don't know what you are talking about, and we move on to other more interesting things.
snip
What is this? You're threatening to post some content? You still haven't said anything this whole topic. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm specifically trying to convince you of anything - I'm voicing my reasons for disliking achievements, and you're.....
you know, I'm really not sure what you're doing. You're not posting anything about achievements, you're not pointing out any errors in my points, you're not trying to convince anyone of anything. You're just making noise to indicate that you still stand by your original convictions.
Again, fingers in the ears.
SlechtWeerBeer
11-06-2009, 21:38
Why do you guys even bother to respond?
What is this? You're threatening to post some content? You still haven't said anything this whole topic. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm specifically trying to convince you of anything - I'm voicing my reasons for disliking achievements, and you're.....
So, do you, or don't you know what you are talking about? I want to hear it from you. You know, I'm sick and tired of armchair game designers and armchair game developers using the most inane arguments about software development which they never touched in their wettest dreams.
If you are going to argue, as you did, using your so-called knowledge on how a game is developed, you better be prepared for the consequences. And my question is, do you know or not what you are talking about? Do you admit you are using arguments for which you in fact have no knowledge of, or do you say you know all there is to know about software development and are ready to have me counter your ridiculous claims?
I won't ask again.
So, do you, or don't you know what you are talking about? I want to hear it from you. You know, I'm sick and tired of armchair game designers and armchair game developers using the most inane arguments about software development which they never touched in their wettest dreams.
I work 40 hours a week in the software lifecycle, I do know how it works. I know what it means to add a new module to a complex, living piece of software. I know the resources required for extensive QA'ing and bug scrubbing. This is why I take issue with the 'its no big deal' response to the development resources argument.
If you are going to argue, as you did, using your so-called knowledge on how a game is developed, you better be prepared for the consequences. And my question is, do you know or not what you are talking about? Do you admit you are using arguments for which you in fact have no knowledge of, or do you say you know all there is to know about software development and are ready to have me counter your ridiculous claims?
I won't ask again.
Again, you're threatening to post some content? I think you have a problem with theatrics, this is like your 4th post saying "its coming! im gonna post something! here it comes!"
I also hope you understand that the goal of your upcoming self-heralded post seems to be proving that implementing achievements takes zero development effort. Because of this, I am skeptical of your knowledge on the subject.
Funkopotamus
11-06-2009, 21:56
I'm a fan of arbitrary and mundane quota achievements that do nothing. The arbitrary, because it gives you something to try; Mundane quotas because it's like a personal record that reminds you "Christ, I've been playing this a while."; and nothing because not everybody wants to go for achievements so they probably shouldn't be penalized for that.
I work 40 hours a week in the software lifecycle, I do know how it works. I know what it means to add a new module to a complex, living piece of software. I know the resources required for extensive QA'ing and bug scrubbing. This is why I take issue with the 'its no big deal' response to the development resources argument.
Very well, then. You say you know how it works. Well, I do to. I'm a software developer since I was 19. That's 23 years in this business, Siyko. So here it goes:
No big deal? You are basing this off what exactly?
This same (faulty) argument could be used to support absolutely any theoretical feature.
And where exactly do you base your own arguments? Your own logic could be used too to support any theoretical feature. And as such we would end up with a game with only minimal features, because everything else takes time.
On the contrary, an Achievements system with no implications on character development and no other in-game effects is in fact quite easy to develop.
An Achievement System (AS, from now on) is often developed using an Observer Pattern (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_pattern) as its basis (you of course know what this is, don't you?). The actual implementation is nothing more than incrementing counters or timers that can run on their own thread, but often are attached to existing game threads. The timers doesn't even need to run continuously. They can run in intervals of time based on certain conditions set by the observer class.
This is the typical weekend project you take home to get finished by Monday. There's no science in it. No outlandish complexity that a team of developers having to design a complete 3D engine from scratch couldn't handle in a couple of days.
Once this AS engine is done, the next step is to define what type of Achievements are going into it. Now, you know those meetings you have every week with the head of departments, the project manager(s) and the occasional developer that is called in? (Of course you do) Well, Achievements are those type of thyings you put last in the list of things to discuss on that meeting. Once the engine done, there's no stopping what can be devised. Implementation of a new achievement is fast and inconsequential under most circumstances. Much more important things need to be discussed. Especially because if achievements give any sort of trouble, they can be easily removed from the game since they do not interfere with any of the game engines in place.
All that is left if for the guy in charge of the GUI to develop a AS frontend for players to check and bloat about. Again this is trivial. Subject to approval, of course. But the type of task that integrates well into all other GUI aspects and that soon will get passed and forgotten. Or are you going to tell me that someone who develops such a complex GUI for Diablo 3 as you are already seeing, can't handle a simple AS GUI?
...
Now, you can argue all this takes time still and that is your argument.
Of course it does! Trivial, doesn't mean 0 cost. Means it is of little concern. Of little significance. And this is so exactly because an AS system doesn't interfere with the game mechanics. The Obsever Pattern makes sure of that. It can be removed from the game anytime with only minimal adjustments. If done well, with just the need to hit "Rebuild Project" once.
Playtesting an achievements system is often done by the players themselves during the open beta stages and any needed adjustments are done to the AS engine directly without any changes to the core game. Since Achievements are nothing but counters and timers, these adjustments are nothing more than simple tweaks like "Ok, instead of killing him 20 times in 30 minutes, lets do it kill it 30 times in 20 minutes". Two variable values got changed." Big deal! You don't even need a full rebuild.
...
Any game mechanics takes time to develop. Similarly I could argue against Town Portals because Jay Wilson wants to remove them and they take time to develop (and are far more influential to the game core). But you don't hear Jay saying they take time to develop. You hear him using arguments based on what he wants for the game to be. I could use all sorts of things I don't like and just label them as "this takes time to implement!" as a basis for my argument against them. How lame do you think that is?
Games are not fully designed before they are implemented. Not anymore. They are among the most complex pieces of software known to man in these days. A game skeleton needs to exist. But much of what comes next will result from those weekly meetings, fan feedback and the ingenuity and intelligence of those involved in developing the game.
Because of this game features are often being debated nearly every single day in those offices. Time is a concern. But you have absolutely no basis to use this as an argument. You know nothing of the project schedule. You are completely out of the loop as anyone else in here concerning this. So every time you say it takes time and shouldn't be done, you are looking rather foolish. Especially if it just so happens the decision was already made to include AS.
This is the basis as to why I find this argument ridiculous and why it irritates me so much. There's some sort of intellectual dishonesty in using an argument as an unquestionable truth when that argument can't be validated as much as you try. Unless you resort to industrial espionage.
Mad Mantis
11-06-2009, 22:37
Enough with the drama. Either you post a reply or you do not post at all. It is similar to saying that you reported a post. Nothing good ever comes from it and it almost always leads to flaming.
As for the remaining two arguments:
-patronizes 'outside-the-box' play
This is your decision to make, not Blizzard's. In fact it promotes in-the-box gameplay, because it brings back into the game, an inevitable characteristic that many players will eventually want to explore.
And if Achievements bother you, you ca simply ignore them. Ignore hem altogether and they will not bother you. How could this be a problem to you is beyond me.
-distracts players from the core game, especially in the context of co-op
I don't know even where to start.
What are you talking about? Achievements are rarely meant to be a core aspect of the game. If they are, I would probably switch my whole idea about them and join you in my criticism. But that's just not the case.
Achievements are a parallel aspect of gameplay that can be used by the player when they feel like, -- and often when they don't feel like playing the game normally. One certainly can devise achievements that are more tuned to normal gameplay. But these will most probably fail because normal gameplay achievements will often mean lack of a challenge.
And achievements are all about a Challenge the player can choose to accept outside the context of the storyline. Just a game feature that has no effect in the game an serves some players who actually likes these type of things, or others that need a change of air for a while.
Enough with the drama. Either you post a reply or you do not post at all. It is similar to saying that you reported a post. Nothing good ever comes from it and it almost always leads to flaming.
2 minutes too late.
Starving_Poet
11-06-2009, 23:05
I have to agree with Krugar on this topic too. Achievements are absolutely voluntary. If you don't like them, you don't do them.
If someone else does them and you don't, they don't give the other player any special bonuses. They just give him a digital trophy room.
It's like complaining about these forums keeping a post count.
And where exactly do you base your own arguments? Your own logic could be used too to support any theoretical feature. And as such we would end up with a game with only minimal features, because everything else takes time.
Everything else that takes time has a value. When the only value present in a system is that it can be turned off, then it is a waste of resources.
An Achievement System (AS, from now on) is often developed using an Observer Pattern as its basis (you of course know what this is, don't you?). The actual implementation is nothing more than incrementing counters or timers that can run on their own thread, but often are attached to existing game threads. The timers doesn't even need to run continuously. They can run in intervals of time based on certain conditions set by the observer class.
Obviously timers and counters will be attached to these - but how? This isn't as simple as counting how many iterations of a while loop is run through - this is tracking an event, series of events, frequency of events, etc.
If I have an achivement 'kill two supermonsters within 30 seconds of each other', how can we do that? Well, we don't need a timer, we just need to inform the AS of the timestamp whenever a supermonster is killed, and have it perform logic based on its last known timestamp. If we're using an observer pattern, then we need to modify this 'enemy dies' class to report to the AS. What does it report? Well, this all depends - most likely we'd always inform it on a kill, and let it sort out the relevant information.
This is the typical weekend project you take home to get finished by Monday. There's no science in it. No outlandish complexity that a team of developers having to design a complete 3D engine from scratch couldn't handle in a couple of days.
A weekend assignment in a small program, sure. How much info in D3 are we going to track? If this thing runs on its own thread (with all the data it gets I am fairly sure it would), then what of the overhead involved? How do we optimize this? (for a PC game, we want the biggest hardware range possible, so sub-optimal algorithms are a high concern).
Once this AS engine is done, the next step is to define what type of Achievements are going into it. Now, you know those meetings you have every week with the head of departments, the project manager(s) and the occasional developer that is called in? (Of course you do) Well, Achievements are those type of thyings you put last in the list of things to discuss on that meeting.
Not really, this is a game design decision, it has very little to do with the developers until the list is complete. I don't know how much design developers have control over at Blizzard, but I assume not much. The list of achievements are an important subject, it's not the kind of thing you can bonk two designers' heads together and spit out a list. Significant thought has to go into this.
Once the engine done, there's no stopping what can be devised.
Hold on, when did we finish the engine? We installed hooks into the rest of the code and, assumedly, built the means to interpret that data. The engine isn't complete, we just have an API.
Implementation of a new achievement is fast and inconsequential under most circumstances. Much more important things need to be discussed. Especially because if achievements give any sort of trouble, they can be easily removed from the game since they do not interfere with any of the game engines in place.
This much is true.
All that is left if for the guy in charge of the GUI to develop a AS frontend for players to check and bloat about. Again this is trivial. Subject to approval, of course. But the type of task that integrates well into all other GUI aspects and that soon will get passed and forgotten. Or are you going to tell me that someone who develops such a complex GUI for Diablo 3 as you are already seeing, can't handle a simple AS GUI?
You're turning it into a question of difficulty - it's not difficult - it's consuming. Something like D3 cannot have a half-assed GUI in any aspect - we've all played games where the multiplayer interface or tutorial or something feels so CHEAP because it was clearly tacked on. Blizzard will not do this.
Now, you can argue all this takes time still and that is your argument.
Of course it does! Trivial, doesn't mean 0 cost. Means it is of little concern. Of little significance. And this is so exactly because an AS system doesn't interfere with the game mechanics. The Obsever Pattern makes sure of that. It can be removed from the game anytime with only minimal adjustments. If done well, with just the need to hit "Rebuild Project" once.
It doesn't interfere with the game mechanics, but the game mechanics interfere with it. Any change to the logic of the game might mean the AS has to change. For example, let's say we change the way inventory works slightly - instead of holding 5 healing potions as an array of item.potion.healing() objects, we only have one object - this object just has a variable that defines 'quantity'. That change is fine, but now we need to change the way AS interprets healing potions or else the "collect 20 healing potions" achievement will not work - or it might barf when thrown unknown properties of this item.
Playtesting an achievements system is often done by the players themselves during the open beta stages and any needed adjustments are done to the AS engine directly without any changes to the core game. Since Achievements are nothing but counters and timers, these adjustments are nothing more than simple tweaks like "Ok, instead of killing him 20 times in 30 minutes, lets do it kill it 30 times in 20 minutes". Two variable values got changed." Big deal! You don't even need a full rebuild.
This is playtesting the IMPACT of a WORKING achivement system. There is still plenty of testing in getting the achivement system working 100%.
Any game mechanics takes time to develop. Similarly I could argue against Town Portals because Jay Wilson wants to remove them and they take time to develop (and are far more influential to the game core). But you don't hear Jay saying they take time to develop. You hear him using arguments based on what he wants for the game to be. I could use all sorts of things I don't like and just label them as "this takes time to implement!" as a basis for my argument against them. How lame do you think that is?
First of all, you're citing PR-speak and applying it to the design/development environment. You should know those are totally different worlds. Secondly, achivement systems do not really affect the gaming experience, while TP certainly would. Achievements are not 'part of the game experience', they are more like a leaderboard or high score list. Secondly, 'it takes time to implement' was just one concern - there are more concerns. If this was the only concern to an otherwise desirable system, then you're right, it would be ignored. But it is not the only concern, and the system is not desirable.
Games are not fully designed before they are implemented. Not anymore. They are among the most complex pieces of software known to man in these days. A game skeleton needs to exist. But much of what comes next will result from those weekly meetings, fan feedback and the ingenuity and intelligence of those involved in developing the game.
Because of this game features are often being debated nearly every single day in those offices. Time is a concern. But you have absolutely no basis to use this as an argument. You know nothing of the project schedule. You are completely out of the loop as anyone else in here concerning this. So every time you say it takes time and shouldn't be done, you are looking rather foolish. Especially if it just so happens the decision was already made to include AS.
You're applying this argument in the wrong context. The original point was along the lines of:
'Even if you dont want achivements in any form, if it can be turned off, then it's no harm to you - the end gamer!'
It isn't, has never been, and shouldn't be the only reason to keeping back an otherwise desirable system, so do not argue against made-up claims that it is.
This is the basis as to why I find this argument ridiculous and why it irritates me so much. There's some sort of intellectual dishonesty in using an argument as an unquestionable truth when that argument can't be validated as much as you try. Unless you resort to industrial espionage.
So speculation is 100% useless because it cannot be confirmed? Unless Blizzard has some magical way of developing games that doesn't involve writing code, then the point remains as a strike against achievements.
Demetrium
12-06-2009, 01:27
Krugar is just trolling, please stop replying to him.
Everything else that takes time has a value. When the only value present in a system is that it can be turned off, then it is a waste of resources.
Says you. I say there is value in an AS because I like Achievements. So, why do you insist in this line of thought where you can read on this thread a lot of players saying they would like or they wouldn't mind having an AS?
Aren't you just forgetting that there are also other people playing the game and they too have a saying. Why do you insist there is no value in AS? At least, I take the stance I wouldn't mind either way; Diabo 3 with or without AS is ok with me.
Obviously timers and counters will be attached to these - but how? This isn't as simple as counting how many iterations of a while loop is run through - this is tracking an event, series of events, frequency of events, etc.
err... That's exactly what an observer class and its helper class are. They observe changes in the system and some of these changes trigger the report of these events to other classes. There's no magic involved. And no complex code. Certainly not when it comes to an AS system. Even in Artificial Intelligence where the observer pattern can be used to support more complicated Publisher/Subscriber relationships, this is essentially pretty straightforward code. Certainly within the capabilities of someone willing to develop for a company like Blizzard.
If I have an achivement 'kill two supermonsters within 30 seconds of each other', how can we do that? Well, we don't need a timer, we just need to inform the AS of the timestamp whenever a supermonster is killed, and have it perform logic based on its last known timestamp. If we're using an observer pattern, then we need to modify this 'enemy dies' class to report to the AS.
No. We don't need to do that. The only thing needed is for the supermonster class (assuming this would be the choice for the Subject class on the observer pattern) was to include on its list of observer classes (a list that already exists for other game logic) this one more observer meant to support AS. Severing this link has no consequences in the game. So, removing the observer class and all its logic, shouldn't have no effect on the game since any programmer serious about their work, will never allow for an observer class to have an impact on the Subject.
Furthermore, the actual addition of the observer class to the Subject's observers list is not done by the subject. It's usually done at object creation by another pattern called Factory. The whole system can be (and is, or else the programmer would be in trouble) perfectly encapsulated and perfectly transparent.
A weekend assignment in a small program, sure. How much info in D3 are we going to track? If this thing runs on its own thread (with all the data it gets I am fairly sure it would), then what of the overhead involved? How do we optimize this? (for a PC game, we want the biggest hardware range possible, so sub-optimal algorithms are a high concern).
Uh? There is no way an AS will have a performance impact on a system beyond the most insignificant of digits. Only on mission critical systems one would have to evaluate the impact of an Observer class and its helper classes on the whole system. Anything that turns an observer class supporting an AS into a bootleneck has to be a bug. If you are a programmer you should know this. If you are not a programmer but closely related to the development process, you should know that code optimization is dealt only later and as a whole.
But above all, this is simply a system that increments counters and updates/ resets timers. We are talking of processor cycles in the hundreths at most. This is absolutely meaningless in today's typical window of thousands of trillions of clocks per second.
Achievements have been implemented in games back in the 80's Commodore and ZX Spectrum with no impact whatsoever. We are talking of 8 bit processors and memory spaces totaling 48k! What impact exactly do you think they will do today? Heck! And I even know how to do it. Still recently have been learning how to program for the Z80 as part of my ZX Spectrum nostalgia feeling. I love it.
Hold on, when did we finish the engine?
And what do you think an engine actually is? Don't mistake the idea of complex software structures like 3D engines, AI, or Physics engines, as the measure for any other Engine. Those are actually the exception.
A software engine is an encapsulated block of functionality. It's size or complexity is irrelevant. A software program, and a game no less, can have thousands of different engines. Any AS will have its own engine. Often no more than a handful of classes.
It doesn't interfere with the game mechanics, but the game mechanics interfere with it. Any change to the logic of the game might mean the AS has to change.
Ok. You are definitely not a programmer. Or at least not one used to handling the finer aspects of Object Oriented Programming. :)
It's ok. Really. But it's important for me to establish the boundaries of this conversation. Where I can go to be made understood and where I shouldn't go, or risk not being understood.
One of the chief objectives of object oriented programming (OOP) is to achieve encapsulating at the lowest (as in, best) possible level. Design Patterns, of which the Observer pattern is one example, are specially designed to guarantee this level of Code Safety.
A programmer, and a professional programmer especially, better adhere to what is known in the area as Best Practices for OOP of fail miserably at their profession. A well defined Observer Pattern will not suffer from lack of encapsulation. And thus will not force the rest of the code into the type of dependencies that could have any programmer out of their job.
This is playtesting the IMPACT of a WORKING achivement system. There is still plenty of testing in getting the achivement system working 100%.
Some. Not much. It's a rather simple system. It's hard for me to think of anything much simpler than an Achievement system.
So speculation is 100% useless because it cannot be confirmed?
No. But turning speculation into a irreparable truth is a gross abuse.
If you tell me there are chances this system would take a lot of time to develop and so you feel maybe it's a bad thing to do, I could try and argue over that type of speculation in less aggressive terms as I did some posts back.
But you went a few steps beyond that. Heck, you took the whole extra mile. You tried to turn nothing more than an hypothesis into an solid argument against the development of an AS. That is unfair.
Mostly because when you are questioned, you then go on and force on me the proof necessary to disproof your false argument, when you yourself make no effort to support it. And so, I'm force into two walls of text just to try and show you that:
1. It's not much work
2. It's not demanding in terms of game design
3. You cannot say, and never will be able to say, exactly how much an impact this would have on Blizzard's currenr Diablo 3 schedule.
Krugar is just trolling, please stop replying to him.
What? How dare you? What on earth!...
I'm trying my best to explain why and how these things are usually made and you dare call me a troll?
Knight_Wolf
12-06-2009, 01:35
No big deal? You are basing this off what exactly?
This same (faulty) argument could be used to support absolutely any theoretical feature. The point is implementing ANYTHING (including achievements) is never trivial. There's brainstorming, design, development, core testing, implementation, QA, redesign, and documentation. ALL of this is required, and none of it is trivial.
Why not have a 'make your own class'? Why not have alternative color palletes? Why not have a map editor? Why not have an extra 'joke' class?
Lols, your comprehension is laughable .... it is TRIVIAL compared to any of the other things you mentioned .. it does take time and some work but that work in nothing compared to making a map editor or an extra class .... for very OBVIOUS reasons i need not state ... since i can't believe you don't know the difference between the effort used in writing few stat counters (which its structure can already be taken from other projects like WoW) with a UI and the effort needed for making a new class in D3 .. if you don't then don't read any further cause debating with you would be a waste of time.
They EXPLICITLY stated they will implements achievements in ALL their upcoming games (D3, SC2, ... etc etc) and will use B.net2 for tracking these .... they don't think it's a big deal really like you do .. and they do know BETTER ... not to mention they already have experience with them in WoW.
Because it's not as good as other things that should be in the game.
Not as good according to you .. Blizz and many fans think otherwise.
I hate to break your illusion, but Blizzard is a company seeking to make money, and like it or not, their games DO have a deadline. It might be far away, but there is a point where it becomes more harmful to wait than to release it, and at that point they will release it.
Hahaha .. you are the delusional one .... they care about content and quality before anything .... and they do scrap projects if they don't meet the QUALITY standard they set regardless of how much was spent on it (both time and money) .. and i doubt they do set a specific deadline at all before reaching Beta .. just a vague one .. which is again what makes them different from companies that set a solid date even with the game still in alpha or pre-alpha.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. People like fresh challenges and making up their own gameplay, this is true. This is, however, counter-intuitive to achievements which simply grant the user another list of things to do.
There is nothing counter intuitive .. even if you say so it doesn't make much sense ... achievements range from thing most normal players would do (at that part it acts more as a record for the player) and other things only the most dedicated or skilled would dare attempt ... that's a challenge that's directed, clear and recorded .. HOW is that counter intuitive in any way.
It seems you are assuming the achievements will not encourage a new type of game play and give fresh challenges -probably because you don't like achievements- how the heck do you know how well the achievements in D3 will be made ... or are you just making things up.
Make it worth their while? Are you implying rewards for achievements now? Because I wrote a pretty long post about why that's a horrible idea.
What you wrote means nothing when i see games (i.e Halo 3) giving nice rewards for completing a number of achievements and work just fine ... of course the rewards are cosmetic at best and have no impact on the gameplay ... just for bragging rights (i.e a chance to make one of your items looks unique and one of a kind ... or a cape with a cool emblem on it which has normal stats ... etc etc etc)
Ever play TF2 after one of the class updates?
"why didn't you heal me?"
"im trying to get the 'win a round without healing anyone' achievement"
If you don't see any potential of this in D3, I ask you to come up with a list of achievements you would like to see that will not create a similar situation.
Lols ... you are already assuming lots of non-sense here ... there is no reason whatsoever to give any value for your assumptions ... and here is why.
-Achievments are optional ... that person with that mentality will act the same even if there is no actual achievement for it ... or he can think of even worse things on his own to challenge himself (like killing 10 team mates .. etc etc) .... if achievements are designed right this can easily be avoided and give something good for achievements hunter to focus on instead of leaving things for their imagination.
-Achievements could work to encourage team work instead of the other way around ... just add "team" or "party" before some of them and it will work
Ex:
"Teamwork"
While in a team Kill all Bosses on Hell diff. without dying once.
"Healer of the Week"
While in a team pick up 50 health globes to heal your teammates.
"Merchant"
Trade 200 items with you friends"
There are tons and tons of ideas .. just if you have an open mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadly you just shut your mind on your weird argument and refuse to see that it is clearly obvious achievements can BE MADE to serve any purpose the designer wants them to iuf they are done right (even with rewards .. cosmetic as we said).
And the "it takes time" argument is really pathetic ... everything in the game development takes time ... if Blizz want achievements in all their upcoming games i'm pretty sure they know that better than any of us (and indeed better than you) and already have their schedules arranged with "achievements" sessions in them :coffee:
What? How dare you? What on earth!...
I'm trying my best to explain why and how these things are usually made and you dare call me a troll?
Ignore him Krugar, his post actually qualifies as troll or spam since it adds nothing to the topic.
I'm not very good with technical stuff (more of an artist) but i really liked reading you tech-oriented replies here.
Lols, your comprehension is laughable .... it is TRIVIAL compared to any of the other things you mentioned .. it does take time and some work but that work in nothing compared to making a map editor or an extra class .... for very OBVIOUS reasons i need not state ... since i can't believe you don't know the difference between the effort used in writing few stat counters (which its structure can already be taken from other projects like WoW) with a UI and the effort needed for making a new class in D3 .. if you don't then don't read any further cause debating with you would be a waste of time.
Straw man argument never fails does it? I never said they're equal. Your whole paragraph serves to satisfy your own ego, it has nothing to do with what I said. Hope it was fun.
Hahaha .. you are the delusional one .... they care about content and quality before anything .... and they do scrap projects if they don't meet the QUALITY standard they set regardless of how much was spent on it (both time and money) .. and i doubt they do set a specific deadline at all before reaching Beta .. just a vague one .. which is again what makes them different from companies that set a solid date even with the game still in alpha or pre-alpha.
If you think a blizzard exec would make a decision on release that would knowingly hurt the company more than it would help, you are the delusional one. This is how the world works.
There is nothing counter intuitive .. even if you say so it doesn't make much sense ... achievements range from thing most normal players would do (at that part it acts more as a record for the player) and other things only the most dedicated or skilled would dare attempt ... that's a challenge that's directed, clear and recorded .. HOW is that counter intuitive in any way.
Which do you think was more impressive, the first person to climb Mt Everest, or the 2nd? Who do you think had a better sense of satisfaction upon completion?
When you make your own challenge and fulfill them, it's very different than being handed a chore and saying 'that sounds kinda hard'.
It seems you are assuming the achievements will not encourage a new type of game play and give fresh challenges -probably because you don't like achievements- how the heck do you know how well the achievements in D3 will be made ... or are you just making things up.
I guess my knowledge of achievements is limited to achievements in games I've played, what a horrible sin I have committed. There are plenty of examples of bad achievements in this thread. I see some examples of yours below so I will respond to them.
What you wrote means nothing when i see games (i.e Halo 3) giving nice rewards for completing a number of achievements and work just fine ... of course the rewards are cosmetic at best and have no impact on the gameplay ... just for bragging rights (i.e a chance to make one of your items looks unique and one of a kind ... or a cape with a cool emblem on it which has normal stats ... etc etc etc)
e-peen
Lols ... you are already assuming lots of non-sense here ... there is no reason whatsoever to give any value for your assumptions ... and here is why.
First of all, don't write like a retard. Secondly, don't write like I'm a retard. You'll notice people take you a little more seriously when you don't start every sentence with 'Lol'. Just some life advice.
-Achievments are optional ... that person with that mentality will act the same even if there is no actual achievement for it ... or he can think of even worse things on his own to challenge himself (like killing 10 team mates .. etc etc) .... if achievements are designed right this can easily be avoided and give something good for achievements hunter to focus on instead of leaving things for their imagination.
-Achievements could work to encourage team work instead of the other way around ... just add "team" or "party" before some of them and it will work
Ex:
"Teamwork"
While in a team Kill all Bosses on Hell diff. without dying once.
"Healer of the Week"
While in a team pick up 50 health globes to heal your teammates.
"Merchant"
Trade 200 items with you friends"
So these are exactly the types of achievements I would expect to see. The first is nothing but bragging rights - and crappy ones at that. Decent players will do this already - the achievement adds nothing to it.
Second and third are just things that either get eventually unlocked through normal play, or you'll sit there farming for unfathomable reasons. Of what value are they?
There are tons and tons of ideas .. just if you have an open mind.
There are tons of ideas. However, in all the games I've played to date, I haven't seen any good ideas yet.
Sadly you just shut your mind on your weird argument and refuse to see that it is clearly obvious achievements can BE MADE to serve any purpose the designer wants them to iuf they are done right (even with rewards .. cosmetic as we said).
"Im right you are wrong!"
say something useful.
And the "it takes time" argument is really pathetic ... everything in the game development takes time ... if Blizz want achievements in all their upcoming games i'm pretty sure they know that better than any of us (and indeed better than you) and already have their schedules arranged with "achievements" sessions in them :coffee:
So "your argument is really pathetic" followed by "i agree". That's smooth.
You clearly know more about programming than me, but the entire argument is beside the point
1. It's not much work
2. It's not demanding in terms of game design
3. You cannot say, and never will be able to say, exactly how much an impact this would have on Blizzard's currenr Diablo 3 schedule.
1) it is some work
2) it is some demand
3) it is an impact.
Someone posted an analogy back where you buy a meal: an entree that you like, and a side dish you don't like and have no desire to eat. Wouldn't you trade that side dish for a bit more of the entree? This is the entire point of the 'development resources' point.
Is it 'trivial'? I don't know, how do you define trivial? How many 'trivial to implement + useless features' would YOU tolerate?
Of course I understand 'useless' is subjective, but so far the only pro I see for achievements is 'e-peen', something that I take great issue with in multiplayer games - I feel it damages the community, the gaming experience, and player attitude.
Knight_Wolf
12-06-2009, 03:26
Straw man argument never fails does it? I never said they're equal. Your whole paragraph serves to satisfy your own ego, it has nothing to do with what I said. Hope it was fun.
Eluding the point ... fail much .... you clearly equated them if you are comparing them directly ... you can't equate making a class or a map editor with a simple events counter .. that's a completely false and delusional comparison because the difference in the work needed for the first makes the second trivial in terms of the time and effort needed.
And stop you pathetic attempts at perosnal insults ... +more fail.
If you think a blizzard exec would make a decision on release that would knowingly hurt the company more than it would help, you are the delusional one. This is how the world works.
WTH !!!! .... i say they care about the quality of the game more than release dates, effort or money spent and you talk to me about decisions hurting the company ... apparently you know nothing about Blizz ... we have a clear example for that (SC:Ghost much .. and there are many other of their games that got canceled because they what they care about the most is their QUALITY standard) .. really WTH ... you also magically and out of thin air assumed that adding achievements would hurt the game ... delusional much ... and can't read too ... THEY PLAN TO ADD ACHIEVEMENTS IN ALL THEIR UPCOMING GAMES ... does the CAPs help you read better ... hope so ^_^
Maybe Blizz should listen to you and cancel all their games cause they take effort and time to make and sit on their back in Hawaii enjoying their WoW money. /just giving you a taste of your hyperbolism
Which do you think was more impressive, the first person to climb Mt Everest, or the 2nd? Who do you think had a better sense of satisfaction upon completion?
Nonsense ... people still climb Mt.Everst till today and feel very proud of it ... cause it is a freaking challenge regardless of who did it first .. not everyone can do it .. that's what a freaking challenge is ... so hard to understand .. huh.
When you make your own challenge and fulfill them, it's very different than being handed a chore and saying 'that sounds kinda hard'.
Talk about delusional ... how do you know it is really challenging or that it really requires skill or effort ... the game designers indeed know about that much better than some delusional players.
e-peen
Try a meaningful reply next time ... the idea works very well and there are many examples to that regardless of whatever bad experiences you babble about.
First of all, don't write like a retard. Secondly, don't write like I'm a retard. You'll notice people take you a little more seriously when you don't start every sentence with 'Lol'. Just some life advice.
Blah blah ... i didn't start every sentence with "lols" .. i'm really getting tired of your hyperboles and delusions.
So these are exactly the types of achievements I would expect to see. The first is nothing but bragging rights - and crappy ones at that. Decent players will do this already - the achievement adds nothing to it.
Second and third are just things that either get eventually unlocked through normal play, or you'll sit there farming for unfathomable reasons. Of what value are they?
Yeah, because the ideas i came up within 5 secs on the fly are the ONLY ideas that can be made ... gosh ... close mindedness .. delusions and always jumping to conclusions ... there is no point in giving any examples to you cause you won't listen either way.
As for their value .. well eventhough i'm sure you won't understand .. they are of value for people who like that kind of thing .... ok
There are tons of ideas. However, in all the games I've played to date, I haven't seen any good ideas yet.
"Im right you are wrong!"
say something useful.
Sigh ... so much fail really .... you state you only played games with bad achievements and then turn that into a fact that all achievements are bad ... that's exactly what CLOSE MINDED is ... so hard to understand i guess.
1) it is some work
2) it is some demand
3) it is an impact.
If this is what you conclude from my posts, then we have nothing more to talk about. You aren't going to flinch even when faced with the best possible arguments I can come up with.
It's only a shame you confuse your distaste for achievements with their usefulness in the context of a broad game that has the potential to satisfy all sorts of players with a small share of their desires.
You negate Achievements basing yourself on arguments you can't sustain, defend or in any way support. Not satisfied you negate any effort to show you your arguments are wrong. You are thus taking a fundamentalist stance on this issue.
And I will refuse to debate this any further with you. And now... let's go back to what started this all, shall we? Appreciate the irony:
Why having both (and on top of that making one of them entirely optional) is a matter for visceral criticism is really beyond me. Perhaps it's the new fad... Criticize Achievements! Just do it! Nike style!
I was right all the time. But it's ok. I often am.
Vitamins
12-06-2009, 03:50
This is true if and only if the game can only be played one way, completely linearly. This is not the case with Diablo 3.
My point was that achievement systems are extensions of the reward systems that are inherent in all games.
Look at Final Fantasy 1. Some people beat it with a single white mage - that's friggin hard. I'm sure it was quite a puzzle to solve (before guides came out) and folks wondered if it was possible.
Cool. Wouldn't it have been more cool if people got an achievement for doing it? I guess it wouldn't matter in a single player game, but if FF1 was online and it had an achievement system, then you'd be able to show off to other players and maybe even be awarded with something.
What if there was an achivement "beat the game with a single white mage"? Well, you're basically in the same position, except now you KNOW its possible, AND the developers have already done it, so we've already detracted something from the experience.
Yes, you'd know that it can be done and that would indeed take away from the fun of discovering it by yourself, but I don't see how that would completely "distract you from the experience." You'd still have to wrestle with the challenge of beating the game with one white mage.
I love coming up with challenges for games and fulfilling them, I dont see why I need the game developers to come up with a list of challenges - it feels very condescending when "Clear the catacombs in 4 minutes" is right next to "Open a treasure chest".
This is an argument against stupid achievements and not achievement systems in general though. And you can still come up with your own achievements regardless of whether or not there's an achievement system in the game. In fact, you could come up with your own list of achievements and then compare your list with the developers' list. Maybe you'd find some that you'd like?
Basically, if it's an achievement, then the developers have made sure it's doable by most people - and if it's doable by most people, then it's hardly an 'achievement'. It's just a task that you have been asked to do for no reason.
I think you're setting up a straw man at the end of your post when you say an achievement is something that has to be made easy enough to obtain, so that everybody can earn it. That doesn't have to be the case.
Demetrium
12-06-2009, 05:53
What? How dare you? What on earth!...
I'm trying my best to explain why and how these things are usually made and you dare call me a troll?
You are a troll. All of your posts come off with as having a ridiculously pretentious tone, and you took like 5 wind-up posts before even coming up with a substantive counter argument to Siyko. Why couldn't you have just posted your design experience with actual logic in the first place, and spare us several garbage 'hot air' posts? I would have had much more respect for you if you had done this, as you do seem to have an incredible amount of knowledge on application design. Then again, you did tell Siyko you don't care what he thinks of you, and I'm sure you're thinking along the same lines for me.
You don't have to be demeaning every time you're on the opposite side of an issue. Its one thing to have an opinion and back it, it's another thing to look like a baby while trying to get your point across. You have a terrible tendency to dismiss somebody else's point of view as "weak", sheerly because you disagree with it. While you don't necessarily have to agree with people's points, it fair to occasionally acknowledge them.
Anyway, enough about forum etiquette. I don't always observe it perfectly myself, but it's something you may want to work on in the future. After reading this entire thread I'll also strive to do the same.
You have in my opinion, failed to pick a stance on the topic during your passion for argument:
I say there is value in an AS because I like Achievements. So, why do you insist in this line of thought where you can read on this thread a lot of players saying they would like or they wouldn't mind having an AS?
Aren't you just forgetting that there are also other people playing the game and they too have a saying. Why do you insist there is no value in AS? At least, I take the stance I wouldn't mind either way; Diabo 3 with or without AS is ok with me.
While it took you forever to do so, you have successfully raised an argument against the idea that achievements do take a lot of resources. While I don't agree with it, I do applaud you in finally doing so. Unfortunately, there was another point you completely dismissed:
And if Achievements bother you, you ca simply ignore them. Ignore hem altogether and they will not bother you. How could this be a problem to you is beyond me.
Both Siyko and I have now cited how achievements can inconvenience people trying to play the game "normally". We both cited Team Fortress with the exact same example, but apparently it needs to be repeated a third time.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Demetrium/stats/TF2?tab=achievements
Does It Hurt When I Do This?
Kill 50 Scouts with your syringe gun.
Consultation
Assist a fellow Medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
Peer Review
Kill 50 Medics with your bone saw.
It took me about 30 seconds to find three achievements that have the potential to (and have, from my experience) negatively impact gameplay for most serious gamers. If you need, I can explain them since I assume not everyone has played Team Fortress 2. In TF2, your primary role as a medic should be to keep your team alive via healing. Anyone can see that these above achievements can completely distract someone playing a medic from keeping their team alive. People are going to be compelled to do these achievements, if not only by laundry list compulsion, but by the fact in TF2 you are rewarded with alternate weapons upon getting x number of achievements.
Obviously not every game has achievements like this (or is necessarily team based), but you can obviously see the potential problem it becomes, especially when rewards are thrown into the mix. This is why, like I said earlier, I am vehemently against any sort of bonus based on achievements. This is also why I disagree with anyone who says "achievements won't affect you, ignore them". It just doesn't work that way. Any time you have bonuses attached to achievements (regardless of how small), many gamers, especially hardcore gamers will find the achievements become less and less optional in their strife for greatness.
I still completely stand by my opinion that achievements add nothing to a game. Any achievement can be done regardless of whether or not it's on some list. Again, I think that real achievements will be recognized by yourself and the people who witness them. It seems to me like this concept is purely opinion based and really can't be argued. Regardless, this is my stance.
Also, Knight_Wolf, you don't have to use 5000 ellipses for every post you make.
Vitamins
12-06-2009, 07:48
Both Siyko and I have now cited how achievements can inconvenience people trying to play the game "normally". We both cited Team Fortress with the exact same example, but apparently it needs to be repeated a third time.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Demetrium/stats/TF2?tab=achievements
Does It Hurt When I Do This?
Kill 50 Scouts with your syringe gun.
Consultation
Assist a fellow Medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
Peer Review
Kill 50 Medics with your bone saw.
It took me about 30 seconds to find three achievements that have the potential to (and have, from my experience) negatively impact gameplay for most serious gamers. If you need, I can explain them since I assume not everyone has played Team Fortress 2. In TF2, your primary role as a medic should be to keep your team alive via healing. Anyone can see that these above achievements can completely distract someone playing a medic from keeping their team alive. People are going to be compelled to do these achievements, if not only by laundry list compulsion, but by the fact in TF2 you are rewarded with alternate weapons upon getting x number of achievements.
Obviously not every game has achievements like this (or is necessarily team based), but you can obviously see the potential problem it becomes, especially when rewards are thrown into the mix. This is why, like I said earlier, I am vehemently against any sort of bonus based on achievements. This is also why I disagree with anyone who says "achievements won't affect you, ignore them". It just doesn't work that way. Any time you have bonuses attached to achievements (regardless of how small), many gamers, especially hardcore gamers will find the achievements become less and less optional in their strife for greatness.
I still completely stand by my opinion that achievements add nothing to a game. Any achievement can be done regardless of whether or not it's on some list. Again, I think that real achievements will be recognized by yourself and the people who witness them. It seems to me like this concept is purely opinion based and really can't be argued. Regardless, this is my stance.
The simple proactive solution is to create an achievement system that does not reward players with benefits that directly affect core gameplay mechanics. Rewards like titles, vanity pets, costumes, et cetera. Further, the achievement system should not be mandatory. If you want a real-world example of such an achievement system, then look no further than Blizzard's most popular and successful game: World of Warcraft. There are WoW players who love the achievement system and there are WoW players who couldn’t care less about the system and who ignore it completely (I was one of them). The fact is an achievement system similar to WoW’s would not affect players like you in any way, but it’d affect and enhance the game for players who would decide to use such a system. The only argument your camp of thinking has that is worth talking about is whether or not an achievement system is worth the money and time, and the only way you could determine that is with a poll.
Demetrium
12-06-2009, 08:52
The simple proactive solution is to create an achievement system that does not reward players with benefits that directly affect core gameplay mechanics. Rewards like titles, vanity pets, costumes, et cetera. Further, the achievement system should not be mandatory. If you want a real-world example of such an achievement system, then look no further than Blizzard's most popular and successful game: World of Warcraft. There are WoW players who love the achievement system and there are WoW players who couldn’t care less about the system and who ignore it completely (I was one of them). The fact is an achievement system similar to WoW’s would not affect players like you in any way, but it’d affect and enhance the game for players who would decide to use such a system. The only argument your camp of thinking has that is worth talking about is whether or not an achievement system is worth the money and time, and the only way you could determine that is with a poll.
While WoW's achievement system usually doesn't affect core gameplay, you do fail to realize the impact it has. The following examples are obviously less dramatic than my TF2 examples, but they are examples nonetheless:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Tailoring
Upon reaching 420, tailors unlock two cloak recipes that can be learned from the Dalaran trainer once the proper achievements have been completed.
The specific achievements for this are quest related; I want to say there are also rewards for doing things like "learning x number of recipes", etc, but I am not positive. Regardless --- where's the negative player impact?
Joe newbie is leveling up by trying to do some quests. A level 80 rolls in and plows through the camp he's slowly working down and kills the one NPC he needs for his quest. Why? Mr. Level 80 didn't do this quest originally, and now is doing it for an achievement that requires he "completes 1450 Northern Kingdom quests". There are a lot of different ways this can happen, with some different twists. This example is just the most prominent.
The only argument your camp of thinking has that is worth talking about is whether or not an achievement system is worth the money and time, and the only way you could determine that is with a poll.
I don't understand --- I just explained how it has impact on TF2. It's a legitimate argument. I'll agree with you that the system has a lesser effect on WoW, but as I said in my original post, it all depends on how they're implemented. Can you say how they will implement them for D3? I certainly can't.
Vitamins
12-06-2009, 10:52
While WoW's achievement system usually doesn't affect core gameplay, you do fail to realize the impact it has.
The issue is you're not making a good case for why an achievement system has to impact core gameplay. Therefore, it's illogical to be against the idea of achievement systems for that reason. You've given me two examples of the WoW achievement system giving players item rewards with stats. Putting aside the fact that those two cloaks are not all that great, your examples don't prove that WoW's achievement system is detrimental to its core gameplay, nor do they prove that all achievement systems have to have such rewards.
Joe newbie is leveling up by trying to do some quests. A level 80 rolls in and plows through the camp he's slowly working down and kills the one NPC he needs for his quest. Why? Mr. Level 80 didn't do this quest originally, and now is doing it for an achievement that requires he "completes 1450 Northern Kingdom quests". There are a lot of different ways this can happen, with some different twists. This example is just the most prominent.
Could you do me a favor and not make things up and exaggerate? I have a feeling you’ve never even played WoW before. There’s not even a Northern Kingdom in WoW. In my experience, I have never encountered this problem in WoW. I have never had a high level come by and jack my kills and say,”oops, sorry, I’m just doing an achievement,” but even if that did happen, the NPCs/Quest items respawn within a minute anyways, so who cares? This argument does not apply to WoW as far as I'm concerned.
I don't understand --- I just explained how it has impact on TF2.
I don’t understand your posts either. It’s nice that we share some common ground.
Read this again:
"The simple proactive solution is to create an achievement system that does not reward players with benefits that directly affect core gameplay mechanics. Rewards like titles, vanity pets, costumes, et cetera. Further, the achievement system should not be mandatory."
Let it sink it, then post.
TF2 achievements are a bit flawed but the WoW achievements are really smartly done. They don't spoil the experience for others. I believe this will also be the case in D3 and SC2. In WoW the achievement system was a great success, aparat from some random naysayers but the character hair style change had more naysayers really. As it has been mentioned here already, Blizz wants achievements in their upcoming titles, so they must think the advantages greatly outweigh the disavantages.
Knight_Wolf
12-06-2009, 11:50
I don't understand --- I just explained how it has impact on TF2. It's a legitimate argument. I'll agree with you that the system has a lesser effect on WoW, but as I said in my original post, it all depends on how they're implemented. Can you say how they will implement them for D3? I certainly can't.
No it isn't, the way team work is handled in TF2 and the fact that you get substantial rewards from TF2 Achievements make it a special case of badly designed AS with little thought regarding how much impact it could have on the game ...which isn't the general case at all with many other games (WoW and Halo 3 to name few .. oh .. and every freaking game on the Xbox 360 with an online mode too).
As i said few replies before Blizz does plan to include AS in all their upcoming games and on B.net2 and they started with WoW ... they surely learned the benefits of having AS in games and that a number of players like them from the XBox Live experience .. it freaking works if designed right ... it's like after seeing few horror B movies you come up with the conclusion that all horror movies are trash and ignore there are many good ones out there.
--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
Now that we all know Blizz IS undoubtedly going to implement AS in all their upcoming games (SC2 and D3) and use B.net2 accounts to keep track of them i'll give a quick run down on how i think it could be done.
I'll separate Achievements in three classes, first two will work more or less like a record of the player progress and what play style he/she favors ... if you see the achievements page of such player you will know immediately what kind of player he/she is and will know whether to team up with him/her or not, the third type is where the real crazy challenges and out-of-the-box gameplay is.
------------------------------
First type:
-Achievements that record normal/typical player progress and activities, like the titles people gotten after finishing D2 on any difficulty, but this time it covers a broader range of things, they work as a record of how much progress this specific player has made in the game or how much time he/she has been playing ... eventually everyone is ought to get them.
Examples:
-"Transcendent Hero" --> finish game on all three difficulties.
-"Heroes Galore" --> finish the game with all classes on all three difficulties.
-"Butcher" --> kill 1,000,000 monsters
And so on so forth
-------------------------------
Second Type:
-This type is like the first, except it is more determinant to player style rather than his/her general progress, it focuses on certain activities taken to an extreme, they aren't a big challenge but they will immediately tell you what kind of player that person is, they include team oriented AS and activity specific AS.
-"Explorer" --> complete 100 optional quests
-"Majestic Trader" --> trade 1000 items
-"Die Hard" --> complete HC mode 10 times
-"Teamwork" --> Kill 10,000 monsters while in a team
-"Zillionare" --> accumulate 1,000,000,000 gold
And so on so forth
-------------------------------
Third Type:
-That's where the real challenges are, they are made for those who want to try something crazy and unusual.
-"Naked Warrior" --> complete the game 5 times on "Hell" without wearing items and without using items to kill any monsters.
-"Armed to the Teeth" --> complete the game 5 times on "Hell" without investing in or using any skills (passive or active).
-"Hard to the Core" --> finish HC mode 2 times, once without using items and once without using skills.
-"Never Bite the Dust" --> finish game on nightmare difficulty 50 consecutive times without dying.
-"Hell Breaker" --> finish game on Hell difficulty 20 consecutive times without dying.
-"Scavenger" --> finish the game once on Nightmare without buying or selling any items and only using items the fall from enemies.
-"Brilliant Scavenger" --> finish the game once on Hell without buying or selling any items and only using items the fall from enemies.
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
Final notes
1-All examples i made are thought on the fly and can't solely be used to judge how good or bad AS are going to be in D3.
2-As can overlap, while getting one you can be move closer to another as well since they don't require the player confirmation to initiate them.
3-The Achievements are tied to the player account, not a specific D3 character.
4-Achievements can be smartly designed to make players focus on POSITIVE aspects like team work or trade.
5-Achievements can have several purposes (monitoring general progress of said player, show signs of play style, challenges for hardcore players)
6-Rewards can be given to completing a certain percentage of all achievements ... rewards are cosmetic at best and have no substantial impact on gameplay (like in WoW and Halo 3)
7-For all those who say it takes away from creativity, quite the opposite, not only does it keep track of every action you make (and many players like that kind of system) and give each player an identity but it also does allow for creativity since many player will challenge themselves to getting two or three different achievements parallely which increases the challenges greatly.
If this is what you conclude from my posts, then we have nothing more to talk about. You aren't going to flinch even when faced with the best possible arguments I can come up with.
Uh, of course not, you're arguing an irrelevant point. If you post a lengthy post about how achievements are perfectly implemented, and I post ABSOLUTE CONCLUSIVE PROOF that the Earth revolves around the Sun, would you yield your point?
It's only a shame you confuse your distaste for achievements with their usefulness in the context of a broad game that has the potential to satisfy all sorts of players with a small share of their desires.
Heh, I think you changed the direction of this sentence halfway through. This basically says "achievements ARE useful", something you STILL haven't given any evidence of.
You negate Achievements basing yourself on arguments you can't sustain, defend or in any way support. Not satisfied you negate any effort to show you your arguments are wrong. You are thus taking a fundamentalist stance on this issue.
What? So I'm defending my points? Wow, what a ridiculous thing to do.
And I will refuse to debate this any further with you. And now... let's go back to what started this all, shall we? Appreciate the irony:
I was right all the time. But it's ok. I often am.
This is just an opinion piece you wrote, and still haven't given ANYTHING to back it up. Do you not understand that? You have come up with a conclusion, dismiss everything that challenges that conclusion as ridiculous, then praised your conclusion for being the only non-ridiculous piece left. Seriously, do you not understand this? Does this not make any sense to you?
Eluding the point ... fail much .... you clearly equated them if you are comparing them directly ... you can't equate making a class or a map editor with a simple events counter .. that's a completely false and delusional comparison because the difference in the work needed for the first makes the second trivial in terms of the time and effort needed.
And stop you pathetic attempts at perosnal insults ... +more fail.
Again, you have successfully disproven the claim you put in my mouth. What eludes you is the fact that this is meaningless.
WTH !!!! .... i say they care about the quality of the game more than release dates, effort or money spent and you talk to me about decisions hurting the company ... apparently you know nothing about Blizz ... we have a clear example for that (SC:Ghost much .. and there are many other of their games that got canceled because they what they care about the most is their QUALITY standard) .. really WTH ... you also magically and out of thin air assumed that adding achievements would hurt the game ... delusional much ... and can't read too ... THEY PLAN TO ADD ACHIEVEMENTS IN ALL THEIR UPCOMING GAMES ... does the CAPs help you read better ... hope so ^_^
I REALLY don't think you understand what I wrote, and unfortunately, I can't write any simpler. I guess I'll just have to chalk you up as a loss.
Maybe Blizz should listen to you and cancel all their games cause they take effort and time to make and sit on their back in Hawaii enjoying their WoW money. /just giving you a taste of your hyperbolism
What is the point of saying this? Seriously, I don't understand what you're trying to inflict upon me.
Try a meaningful reply next time ... the idea works very well and there are many examples to that regardless of whatever bad experiences you babble about.
If there are 'many', then how come the net count in this thread is 'zero'?
Yeah, because the ideas i came up within 5 secs on the fly are the ONLY ideas that can be made ... gosh ... close mindedness .. delusions and always jumping to conclusions ... there is no point in giving any examples to you cause you won't listen either way.
Hahaha, I really like the flow of this:
A: There are no good examples in history
B: It is easy to come up with good ones!
A: Why can't you come up with any?
B: Fine, (1), (2), (3),
A: Those are bad.
B: So what? It's easy to come up with good ones!
Sigh ... so much fail really .... you state you only played games with bad achievements and then turn that into a fact that all achievements are bad ... that's exactly what CLOSE MINDED is ... so hard to understand i guess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Argue against what I say, not what you pretend I said.
Brandonn
12-06-2009, 16:49
I'm popping back in to try to re-rail this topic!
I've read through all the posts, and while I'm pro-achievements, I've enjoyed reading both sides. AND, I am open minded (on most things). I understand both sides. But when I first made this thread, it wasn't intended to ask the question "Do you like Achievements", sure that was part of it, and let the discussion go where it may, thats the point of this place, yeah? But let's not let it get out of hand.
I want to post something here from "www.maxfreak.com":
In an interview for MTV, lead WoW designer Jeff Kaplan said that Diablo 3 will feature an Achievement system.
There’s already something of an achievement system in Diablo 2 with the Lords, Dames and the other titles. However, what’s new in Diablo 3 is that your Diablo 3 achievements will be added to your WoW and Starcraft 2 achievements for a total Blizzard rank.
The Blizzard rank will be associated with your master Battle.net account, so you’ll be able to show off. I only hope they give adequate achievements bonus to WoW twinks ‘cos I have several!
Blizz WILL have achievements, so if it take more time, if they hire someone just to think of all achievements, etc, it doesn't matter, because they are going to have them.
The other arguments are that it can mess up game play if done wrong. Well, sure it can - anything can. So we just need to hope they do it right, but based on how they did achievements in WoW, I think they will do fine.
So what I'd like us to do, is for us to drop the arguments, and instead discuss what types of achievements you'd like to see in D3. Heck, for those of you that are more concerned about Blizz messing something up, you can post a list of bad achievements.
Maybe later we can argue of the achievements that we've come up with. :)
:thumbup: Achievement Unlocked
Re-Railed - Get a Forum Thread Back on Track
...we'll see...
So what I'd like us to do, is for us to drop the arguments, and instead discuss what types of achievements you'd like to see in D3.
Well, I'm having a little trouble with that. I guess Knight_Wolf did an impressive good job already just two posts above yours. Check that out.
I'm having a little trouble with coming with something else because Blizzard has hinted several times already there's a lot of new game mechanics we are still waiting to see. Some of these may come as excellent targets for achievements.
As an example, let's just pretend, for an instant D3 introduces the notion of scalable item upgrades (something I would really like to have, similar to what Fate has, and that simply means we can upgrade items several times, each time adding to their mods, or if we are unlucky removing them). There could be some potential to create a couple of achievements based on this feature.
In any case, Knight's post pretty much reveals the three type of achievements I would like to see in place. And to not end my post without any real suggestion of my own...
1. System
I'd like for a more complex achievements system based on a few trees. Similar to skills in that completing an achievement in one level of a category, would unlock new achievements further down the tree.
There could also be a ranking system for achievements. Players progress through this rank "ladder" as they complete more and more achievements and as these achievements are more and more difficult.
2. Rewards
I'm divided into whether achievements should have an impact in-game. I can hear one side arguing that it should since there's an effort involved that should have some form of palpable reward. But I can hear the other side arguing that this will only further the gap between skilled players and non skilled players, which should be something left only for normal gameplay. In other words, palpable rewards that affect the player's "power" should exist strictly in the context of normal gameplay.
If anything, I do lean more towards the notion of a reward. However, it should have no effect in player's power, but instead on the character imagery. The player character could be rendered differently based on their achievements rank or have access to special features like renaming their items (do not confuse with prefixing the player name. I'm talking about full rename), or alter the color of their equipment, etc...
Medals, stars, or Titles, etc, could also be awarded to players.
Knight_Wolf
12-06-2009, 18:00
Uh, of course not, you're arguing an irrelevant point. If you post a lengthy post about how achievements are perfectly implemented, and I post ABSOLUTE CONCLUSIVE PROOF that the Earth revolves around the Sun, would you yield your point?
Heh, I think you changed the direction of this sentence halfway through. This basically says "achievements ARE useful", something you STILL haven't given any evidence of.
What? So I'm defending my points? Wow, what a ridiculous thing to do.
This is just an opinion piece you wrote, and still haven't given ANYTHING to back it up. Do you not understand that? You have come up with a conclusion, dismiss everything that challenges that conclusion as ridiculous, then praised your conclusion for being the only non-ridiculous piece left. Seriously, do you not understand this? Does this not make any sense to you?
Again, you have successfully disproven the claim you put in my mouth. What eludes you is the fact that this is meaningless.
I REALLY don't think you understand what I wrote, and unfortunately, I can't write any simpler. I guess I'll just have to chalk you up as a loss.
What is the point of saying this? Seriously, I don't understand what you're trying to inflict upon me.
If there are 'many', then how come the net count in this thread is 'zero'?
Hahaha, I really like the flow of this:
A: There are no good examples in history
B: It is easy to come up with good ones!
A: Why can't you come up with any?
B: Fine, (1), (2), (3),
A: Those are bad.
B: So what? It's easy to come up with good ones!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Argue against what I say, not what you pretend I said.
You are a complete waste of time and like to go in endless loops instead of saying something useful .. not to mention think yourself smarter than everyone by throwing idioms left and right ... also next time try replying to all my replies ... oh .. wait .. there won't be a next time .. welcome to my ignore list.
Now back to topic
Blizz WILL have achievements, so if it take more time, if they hire someone just to think of all achievements, etc, it doesn't matter, because they are going to have them.
The other arguments are that it can mess up game play if done wrong. Well, sure it can - anything can. So we just need to hope they do it right, but based on how they did achievements in WoW, I think they will do fine.
Well said, there are tons of other things besides achievements that could go wrong ... people are ought to worry more about that .. specially things that are part of the core mechanics of the game not a side-dish type of stuff like achievements which probably could be added, modified or removed with a single patch file.
And they indeed do have experience with WoW .. so if anyone here is willing to make an example it is indeed better to use WoW rather than a very bad exception like using an FPS game (TF2) achievements .. which isn't one bit objective by the way.
If anything, I do lean more towards the notion of a reward. However, it should have no effect in player's power, but instead on the character imagery. The player character could be rendered differently based on their achievements rank or have access to special features like renaming their items (do not confuse with prefixing the player name. I'm talking about full rename), or alter the color of their equipment, etc...
Medals, stars, or Titles, etc, could also be awarded to players.
Right on ... good examples come to mind ... both WoW and Halo 3 Got that right ... Halo 3 achievements unlocked new skins for Multiplayer and new skins for weapons that make them look unique and interesting as a reward ... and WoW also has many examples of that different art or new skin as a rewards .. besides the typical titles and trophies ... which like i said is good for many things like keeping a records of a players and their play style, a measure for people's involvement and for bragging rights of course.
Demetrium
12-06-2009, 19:45
Could you do me a favor and not make things up and exaggerate? I have a feeling you’ve never even played WoW before. There’s not even a Northern Kingdom in WoW. In my experience, I have never encountered this problem in WoW. I have never had a high level come by and jack my kills and say,”oops, sorry, I’m just doing an achievement,” but even if that did happen, the NPCs/Quest items respawn within a minute anyways, so who cares? This argument does not apply to WoW as far as I'm concerned.
I said "Northern Kingdoms" instead of "Eastern Kingdoms". I guess this completely upturns the fact I:
Got Rank14 in the old PvP system as a rogue
Got gladiator season 2 as a paladin
Main tanked and led raids from MC-Vanilla Naxx as a warrior
Completed all raid content from MC-WOTLK Naxx
I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.
I'm done arguing with you since having a discussion with you is about as vapid as having one with this empty orange soda can on my desk. My points have been made, my evidence gathered. You fail to recognize them, or at the least acknowledge their existence. This is the end of my participation in this thread.
PS: Knight_Wolf, please take your "I'm with stupid" t-shirt off.
I'm done arguing with you since having a discussion with you is about as vapid as having one with this empty orange soda can on my desk. My points have been made, my evidence gathered. You fail to recognize them, or at the least acknowledge their existence. This is the end of my participation in this thread.
I'm with you. Both Knight_Wolf and Krugar seem to confuse 'winning a debate' with 'ignoring the opposing point of view'.
Mad Mantis
12-06-2009, 21:14
It took me ages to read through all that since last night and it is a bit too late to act now. I do not like what I have read one bit. You can all consider this your final warning. Stop insulting the other forum posters. Don't call people trolls, stupid, dense or anything else negative. The next person to break this rule can take an extended vacation from the forums.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Demetrium/stats/TF2?tab=achievements
Does It Hurt When I Do This?
Kill 50 Scouts with your syringe gun.
Consultation
Assist a fellow Medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
Peer Review
Kill 50 Medics with your bone saw.
The Achievements in the Medic update were widely regarded as a very stupid thing to do because they embodied almost everything a Medic SHOULDN'T be doing. The achievements in later class updates are very much more inline with how the class should be played.
Knight_Wolf
12-06-2009, 21:17
PS: Knight_Wolf, please take your "I'm with stupid" t-shirt off.
Hahahaha ... bye
Now more on topic (sigh now we have less people derailing it) XD
Since Achievements are going to indeed be in the game and a main feature in B.net2, what other ways could it be made fresh besides what Krugar suggested regarding a tree-like system with ranks for achievements.
Here are some ideas.
-Unique titles for those who challenge an achievement more than once (assuming that it is made possible from the beginning)
-Some achievements have multiple ways to gain.
-Adding extra class specific achievements comes as a natural idea ... but they must be designed with care so as to make the class use it's abilities in interesting ways.
Also more on how do we make sure Achievements stay as a side-dish and not interfere with the other game aspects negatively.
-Making achievements rewards (if added) always cosmetic.
-Making sure there is enough variety to cover all play styles and not encourage a certain type of play style solely to get achievements.
-A cool down period in which achievements can't be obtained ... usually a from few days to a week ... it activates if player obtains too many achievements too fast .. basically a spam counter-measure.
Starving_Poet
12-06-2009, 21:28
Both Siyko and I have now cited how achievements can inconvenience people trying to play the game "normally". We both cited Team Fortress with the exact same example, but apparently it needs to be repeated a third time.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Demetrium/stats/TF2?tab=achievements
Does It Hurt When I Do This?
Kill 50 Scouts with your syringe gun.
Consultation
Assist a fellow Medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
Peer Review
Kill 50 Medics with your bone saw.
It took me about 30 seconds to find three achievements that have the potential to (and have, from my experience) negatively impact gameplay for most serious gamers.
As I can only speak from experience: If you're a 'serious' TF2 player, you don't play on pubs.
Unless you are, or attempting to be, sponsored, getting "serious" about a game is a silly.
Making sure there is enough variety to cover all play styles and not encourage a certain type of play style solely to get achievements.
I'd say the one and most important! Indeed, Knight!
If achievements can be made more than just a powerplay showcase , I'd be a very happy camper.
Certainly this is not something that can come up as easy on an ARPG. But taking into consideration Blizzard's announced desire to make of Diablo 3 a wider audience game appealing also to the exploration side, I'd like to see some achievements covering this area.
Further, the achievement system should not be mandatory. If you want a real-world example of such an achievement system, then look no further than Blizzard's most popular and successful game: World of Warcraft.
WoW's achievement system is not optional, in as much as I cannot turn it off. There are tons of achievmenets you get by accident for not sucking at WoW. I don't need the game to validate for me that I don't suck at videogames.
If the achievement system in D3 can be turned off, then I have no problems whatsoever with its inclusion. And, since we've sorta established that it takes no effort to design, implement, and test an achievement system, then it should take even less effort to put a toggle in the options menu for me to turn it off.
Knight_Wolf
13-06-2009, 07:56
WoW's achievement system is not optional, in as much as I cannot turn it off. There are tons of achievmenets you get by accident for not sucking at WoW. I don't need the game to validate for me that I don't suck at videogames.
If the achievement system in D3 can be turned off, then I have no problems whatsoever with its inclusion. And, since we've sorta established that it takes no effort to design, implement, and test an achievement system, then it should take even less effort to put a toggle in the options menu for me to turn it off.
Good point ... but still .. i see no harm if you get some achievements by chance .. they don't bite ... just act as if they aren't there .. it is optional in that you don't have to pursue them if you don't want to .. there is no obligation or game impacting reward you get from doing so.
And indeed it could be possible to turn them off ... but Blizz seems like they want to make it a B.net feature not just for D3 .. since each player will only have one account they want it to keep track of each player's Blizzard gaming level (or something like that .. they mentioned it in one of the interviews) so i don't think they will think of an option to turn it off even if they can do it easily.
Don't forget achievements aren't only for challenges ... like i said before the way Blizz is making them gives them more depth than that .. here is the example categorization i posted few posts ago.
First type:
-Achievements that record normal/typical player progress and activities, like the titles people gotten after finishing D2 on any difficulty, but this time it covers a broader range of things, they work as a record of how much this specific player has made in the game or how much time he/she has been playing ... eventually everyone is ought to get them.
Examples:
-"Transcendent Hero" --> finish game on all three difficulties.
-"Heroes Galore" --> finish the game with all classes on all three difficulties.
-"Butcher" --> kill 1,000,000 monsters
And so on so forth
Second Type:
-This type is like the first, except it is more determinant to player style rather than his/her general progress, it focuses on certain activities taken to an extreme, they aren't a big challenge but they will immediately tell you what kind of player that person is, they include team oriented AS and activity specific AS.
-"Explorer" --> complete 100 optional quests
-"Majestic Trader" --> trade 1000 items
-"Die Hard" --> complete HC mode 20 times
-"Teamwork" --> Kill 10,000 monsters while in a team
And so on so forth
Third Type:
-That's where the real challenges are, they are made for those who want to try something crazy and unusual.
-"Naked Warrior" --> complete the game 5 times on "Hell" without wearing items and without using items to kill any monsters.
-"Armed to the Teeth" --> complete the game 5 times on "Hell" without investing in or using any skills (passive or active).
Vitamins
13-06-2009, 13:52
WoW's achievement system is not optional, in as much as I cannot turn it off. There are tons of achievmenets you get by accident for not sucking at WoW.
It's optional in the sense that you can ignore it without any repercussions. True, ignoring it will not stop the occasional "YOU'VE UNLOCKED SO-AND-SO!" but that doesn't actually bother you, does it?
I don't need the game to validate for me that I don't suck at videogames.
Then you must be against character progression altogether.
It's optional in the sense that you can ignore it without any repercussions. True, ignoring it will not stop the occasional "YOU'VE UNLOCKED SO-AND-SO!" but that doesn't actually bother you, does it?
Then you must be against character progression altogether.
I guess I am going to let my scrubbiness show, but getting achievements has gotten me killed a couple of times playing XBLA games. I react to information on the screen; maybe that's a personal shortcoming (although I don't see how), but yes, it does bother me, and yes, given the choice I would turn the entire system off.
To be clear, character progression is what tells me I'm not terrible at whatever game I am playing, so obviously progression is a good thing. What I do not need or want is a secondary system that amounts to the game saying, "Yeah, and *ANOTHER* thing! You don't suck!" getting in the way of me doing whatever as efficiently as humanly possible, which is why I am playing the game in the first place.
Good point ... but still .. i see no harm if you get some achievements by chance .. they don't bite ... just act as if they aren't there .. it is optional in that you don't have to pursue them if you don't want to .. there is no obligation or game impacting reward you get from doing so.
And indeed it could be possible to turn them off ... but Blizz seems like they want to make it a B.net feature not just for D3 .. since each player will only have one account they want it to keep track of each player's Blizzard gaming level (or something like that .. they mentioned it in one of the interviews) so i don't think they will think of an option to turn it off even if they can do it easily.
I don't want to let Blizz off the hook on the subject of replayability by letting them bounce up and down saying "No, we *have* replayability, look at all these Achievements!!" IMHO, achievements are not content. They don't bite, it's true, but it is the lazy dev's way of falsely adding content and replayability (again, IMO. Those that think achievements are content are entitled to that opinion, but I do not, and never will, share that opinon.) I don't care about Blizzard gamer score, other than to say it is only going to be used to degrade other people's opinions, which would be a strong reason to not include them at all.
Well, I would wager you will indeed have an option to turn achievements off. As you know, the plan is for achievements from blizzard games to all come together in one sort of "Blizzard Achievements Ladder". It's conceivable some players may not wish to participate and be a part of that list. Turning achievements off seems the reasonable choice.
As soon as a player list is to be made, players should always be given the option to opt-out. In any case, if you really feel so strong about it, I'd suggest the official forums. Not that I think Blizzard hasn't thought of that already. But I'm sure they will appreciate hearing it from a player.
EDIT: But one last comment. Many games with achievements don't announce when an achievement was conquered. I don't see Diablo 3 changing this. If anything at all, you'll get small type face lettering in one of the corners of the screen and the game will not be halted or anything even remotely like that.
This is an easy argument.
1. Marketing team at Blizzard looks at achievements in other games, notes they are wildly popular.
2. Popular things = money
3. Blizzard puts developer time into achievements
4. Profit
There is no more to it, the end. I also cannot recall Blizzard selling their customers short. Ever. So I see no reason to assume that they would sacrifice parts of the game to implement a new system.
Also, turning your side dish into some steak doesn't fly. The proper argument would be turning everyone's side dishes into steaks, which is ridiculous in that it is ethically wrong and you wont be able to trade it for some steak in the first place, but only for another cheap feature. I also seriously doubt that something like achievements goes through anywhere near the entire software development cycle. The basic system is implemented by the coders through the cycle, but the ideas and stuff are all more than likely implemented informally amongst the employees.
I also do not see the argument that it detracts from the game. There are many minor things that detract me slightly from games (large colorful interfaces, large lettering, etc), but I'm not about to try to argue that this somehow diminishes the actual game on any level.
This all seems to be some serious agenda pushing by the anti-achievers, where they are trying to force their way of playing with weak arguments. I mean, how many games of TF2 is someone working on achievements? 1 in 30 maybe?
Achievements in Diablo III will be simple knowing this kind of game and company.
1. Kill various mini bosses/major bosses
2. Kill certain number of monsters
3. Finish difficulties without dying
4. First unique item
5. First completed set
6. Hit the level cap
7. PvP kills
8. Unorthodox play (naked runs, fists only, etc)
wishforskillz
13-06-2009, 18:36
I would be all for achievements that you can get with a slight variation of normal game play.
Fist Fighter-Defeat X boss with only your fists. Sure, it might take longer than with your weapons, but your still getting the quest, you just killed a boss by punching it to death, and the loot is still yours.
Just stuff like that, I hate those achievements that make you stop what your doing, go out to get it, then climb all the way back up the ladder to where you were before you decided "hey, I want this one."
Explorer comes to mind...what a stupid achievement.
I also cannot recall Blizzard selling their customers short. Ever.
Then you haven't played Wrath, I take it. I feel sold short, big time. The game was rushed out the door to make the holiday rush before enough content was added to keep people busy. It was embarrassing.
Sabar, here's your list of achievements with my thoughts attached in parens
1. Kill various mini bosses/major bosses (unnecessary: you're supposed to be doing this anyway)
2. Kill certain number of monsters (possible, but only if the D3 achievement system is implemented like Hellgate's, where killing 25,000 undead would give you a damage buff against undead for use in a "buff slot", otherwise unnecessary)
3. Finish difficulties without dying (good for normal, unnecessary in Hardcore)
4. First unique item (on B.net? or you get this for every char when they find their first unique. If the former, then yes, if not then no)
5. First completed set (okay)
6. Hit the level cap (okay)
7. PvP kills (sure, I don't care about Diablo PvP, but it seems reasonable for some remarkable feat in Diablo PvP would yield an achievement)
8. Unorthodox play (naked runs, fists only, etc) (awfully broad, but could be some nuggets here)
Not enough content? For a long time now Blizzard has been aiming more and more towards the casual type of player and there are lots of people still going through 3.0 content.
If you play hardcore and grind your *** through everything then don't blame blizzard when you don't even take the time to enjoy the content.
Besides that the content (amount of raids/dungeons) isn't that much different from when Burning Crusade came out...
Neltharion
16-06-2009, 21:01
I'm playing World of Warcraft right now and the nice thing about achievements is the statistical aspect. For example you can see if you have completed all the quests in one zone, how much gold you have aquired, how many times you have killed a certain type of monster etc. I don't really care about the bragging rights, they are just a nice sidetrack to have.
For Diablo 3, I can imagine it being useful for tracking and showing set or unique items you found among other things kind of like a personal encyclopedia.
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