the first game i ever saw with a a achievement system was a ps2 RPG called Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time back in 2003, they were called Battle Trophies and were only about the game battles, which were the game highest point

star ocean battle system always were extremely fun, and not only the normal game play was way harder than your average jrpg, but it also featured extreme large and difficult bonus dungeons and multiple difficult settings. mostly because the fighting was really fun

the battle trophies were way more difficult than noways achievements, there was a ridicule number of them and lots required not only insane skill but lots of abuse of the game crafting systems

beating the game once were at least 50hours of game, but to truly complete the game it would take months, but it never felt abusive because the game battle system and crafting systems were fun

Quote: Original post by RivieraKid
i hate it. I want innovative gameplay and interesting multiplayer mechanics.

Adventure games where the only puzzle is "Use Gun On Man" are pretty boring. That is COD:MW2. BF:BC2 is a bit more varied but still the same.

Mount & Blade: Warband - now THAT is a game!

Here's why your statement doesn't work.

Example:

Let us pretend that Johnnie makes a brand new game, he feels it's rather innovative and could be a new sport altogether. Johnnie's new game is called Hockey.

It being played on ice, with sticks, and a puck. Something that hasn't really been done before in the genre of sports. So Johnnie makes his game, people love it's new feel...but there's one flaw. There's no score keeping, no tournment play, nothing that distinguishes one team from another, nothing that keeps records of what each are doing, nothing to COMPARE. People are going to get rather bored with nothing to do after the first few games, even playing with friends. Even with multiplayer, competition reigns king -- It's human nature, and what better way to make competition and compare who's best than with an achievement system.

Taking achievements out of games would pretty much be like this, the game can be innovative and new, but playing innovative and new content more than once usually gets boring if you don't have a REASON to play it over again. Achievements have evolved over the years, from being small easter eggs here in there in Atari games, to full blown achievement tabs such as in WoW, with enough content in the tab itself to present a whole new game.

When I was younger and I primarily played video games that my other real-life friends played alongside me, one person would always figure out some neat thing to try to do in the game and challenge the other to do it--or both people would work together to accomplish some idea that they both think is neat even if it's irrelevant to the plot.

I've always thought this was the basic psychological appeal of achievements; they constitute a formalization of those interactions.

But I do think achievements have gotten out of control on Xbox Live. Now games are giving achievements for simply doing exactly what you're supposed to do in the game. This doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't want or need an achievement telling me I finished the story in a game; the conclusion of the story should be satisfying enough.

I will admit, though, that there's a slightly interesting and occasionally useful consequence of those achievements. Your friends on Xbox Live can easily see based on achievements which games you've played and how thoroughly you've played them. I don't play multiplayer on Xbox Live nearly enough for that to matter, but I've been told that it's useful information to have.

Leveling systems are very different from achievements. These primarily function as systems to facilitate structured character development that is simultaneously free to be molded by the player and yet governed by rigid rules of the game world. In many games these systems are very crucial to the core gameplay; they aren't "extras" like achievements are; Deus Ex and Dragon Age are two examples of games from very different genres for which these assertions are true.

Quote: Original post by Christopher Loyd

Quote: Original post by RivieraKid
i hate it. I want innovative gameplay and interesting multiplayer mechanics.

Adventure games where the only puzzle is "Use Gun On Man" are pretty boring. That is COD:MW2. BF:BC2 is a bit more varied but still the same.

Mount & Blade: Warband - now THAT is a game!

Here's why your statement doesn't work.

Example:

Let us pretend that Johnnie makes a brand new game, he feels it's rather innovative and could be a new sport altogether. Johnnie's new game is called Hockey.

It being played on ice, with sticks, and a puck. Something that hasn't really been done before in the genre of sports. So Johnnie makes his game, people love it's new feel...but there's one flaw. There's no score keeping, no tournment play, nothing that distinguishes one team from another, nothing that keeps records of what each are doing, nothing to COMPARE. People are going to get rather bored with nothing to do after the first few games, even playing with friends. Even with multiplayer, competition reigns king -- It's human nature, and what better way to make competition and compare who's best than with an achievement system.

Taking achievements out of games would pretty much be like this, the game can be innovative and new, but playing innovative and new content more than once usually gets boring if you don't have a REASON to play it over again. Achievements have evolved over the years, from being small easter eggs here in there in Atari games, to full blown achievement tabs such as in WoW, with enough content in the tab itself to present a whole new game.

I completely agree (bar the first line) with you because a competitive scoreboard is not the same as acheivement unlocking.

I like scoreboards because I can see whos best

but "well done jimmy, you killed 50 guys with a sniper rifle" is not the same thing

using your analogy its like giving a hockey player a pat on the back after every 50 goals. Its got nothing to do with the other players, you could be an average player and still get 50 goals over enough time - now it is about time investment, not skill. You were not required to beat the best team to get your acheivement.

To conclude my statement works fine.

Snooker has acheivements -
Get a 147 in the competition and get £147k,
get the most century breaks,
Make the best pot

you may loose the competition but win the achievements. The achievements are tacked on to make the competition more interesting but it doesn't enhance gameplay. It seams some games are using achievements as some replacement for actual fun or at least part of the budget is being wasted incorporating acheivements into the game.

Quote: Original post by RivieraKid
you may loose the competition but win the achievements. The achievements are tacked on to make the competition more interesting but it doesn't enhance gameplay. It seams some games are using achievements as some replacement for actual fun or at least part of the budget is being wasted incorporating acheivements into the game.

I don't know, me and a few friends raced each other on who could earn different achievements in BF:BC2 when it first came out.

They don't 'replace' anything, they augment solid games. If it wasn't a solid game to start with, I wouldn't bother getting the achievements, as I wouldn't bother playing it in the first place.

Quote: Original post by RivieraKidI completely agree (bar the first line) with you because a competitive scoreboard is not the same as acheivement unlocking.

I like scoreboards because I can see whos best

but "well done jimmy, you killed 50 guys with a sniper rifle" is not the same thing

using your analogy its like giving a hockey player a pat on the back after every 50 goals. Its got nothing to do with the other players, you could be an average player and still get 50 goals over enough time - now it is about time investment, not skill. You were not required to beat the best team to get your acheivement.

To conclude my statement works fine.

Snooker has acheivements -
Get a 147 in the competition and get £147k,
get the most century breaks,
Make the best pot

you may loose the competition but win the achievements. The achievements are tacked on to make the competition more interesting but it doesn't enhance gameplay. It seams some games are using achievements as some replacement for actual fun or at least part of the budget is being wasted incorporating acheivements into the game.

You are kind of generalizing achievements to be just one variety. There are a lot of achievements that actually take skill. And to say that having a huge time commitment isn't an achievement is kind of silly too. Given enough time I could finish a marathon. I'd still consider finishing a marathon to be an achievement. Or being the slowest person in the world to climb mount everest. Certainly you're not on the leader board, but you still made one of the hardest climbs in the world.

I don't think I would have bought MW2 if it didn't have things like achievements, because I get bored of games pretty quickly and unless they have something else to keep me playing longer, then its not worth the money investment to get the game in the first place.

For example, I picked up a few of the "really innovative" indie games cheap on steam over the years and while they were fun and innovative, they also got boring pretty quick and I lost interest. Besides world of Goo, the indie games I own are probably my least played games (and the ones reviewers called most innovative). I think World of Goo got a bit more game time out of me due to the "collect more goo balls to build a bigger tower" thing. A kind of simple achievement system in itself. Games with "addictive gameplay elements" like acheivements draw me back every now and again and I feel this is a much more sound money investment: if a game can entertain me longer, its worth more to me.

For example, just the other day I started playing Oblivion again, a game I hadn't touched in a few years, to try and beat quests, find places or items, get skills etc I hadn't ever done before. I still ocasionally fire up MW2 just to see can I get that next achievemtnt, etc etc.

If you don't enjoy it, then don't play it. But some people do, at least to a degree. I wouldn't buy a game purely for the achievements, but I do think they enhance the gameplay by providing post-completion/boredom challenges to keep the game alive longer and in the end, the more time a game sucks away, the better the money investment was.

serioso, you and Jonathan Blow are absolutely right on here.