There are games where it belongs and improves the game : Dark souls
There are games where it doesn't matter at all, no positive or negative parts to it : Fallout new vegas
There are games where it doesn't belong at all : Baldur's Gate.
My opinion.
And Bioware's Dragon Age 1 and 2?
Didn't improve the game in any way, just created an illusion of replayability. An illusion BG doesn't need as it has enough replay value already. The achivement system was the only reason my wife forced herself through a dwarven evil playthrough.
There are games where it belongs and improves the game : Dark souls
There are games where it doesn't matter at all, no positive or negative parts to it : Fallout new vegas
There are games where it doesn't belong at all : Baldur's Gate.
My opinion.
And Bioware's Dragon Age 1 and 2?
Didn't improve the game in any way, just created an illusion of replayability. An illusion BG doesn't need as it has enough replay value already.
But thats your opinion. I know 10+ people over the xbox360 and pc who hunted all the achievements for Dragon Age.
Check my gamertag "Quezcotl" and see what I racked up for the xbox-version. I also have the pc version over steam.
But then they are playing the game because of the achivements. I would not wish anyone to play through a game for the achivements, and instead play through it because they want to.
The reason it works with Dark souls is because it's already so hard, that doing the achivements is a challenge above the normal game.
[Edited]:
My brother used to hunt achivements on the Xbox360 and nothing made me as sad as watching him throw away games and sell them again after he got the achivements. The games weren't important to him nor did he enjoy playing them, he just did it to get more achivements. It sickes me to see grown up men buy childrens games to the Xbox360 so they can get even more achivement points.
See... I see it diffrent. I see achivement as a carrot for some people to try something new. If you had an achivement to reach level 20 mage, 20 rogue and 20 warrior - it was a carrot for people to try all diffrent classes. That is my guess why Bioware added it. Or it could be just to make sure everyone who reached 20 can prove it.
Anyway, im going out and I will watch the women soccer/football - Denmark vs Norway, its a way to trick women into being a feminist!
I see it as a way for the game publishers to milk even more out of the game.
You played as good? Now do it as evil! You done playing as evil? Now do it as neutral! = 3 times through game.
You play as mage? Now play as fighter! Now as rogue! ... = 3-6 more playthroughs
What is this? You played on easy? What about normal.. nightmare... WHAT ABOUT ULTRA HARDCORE!? = 4 more playthroughs.
And smart people.. They tailor their games so they can get as many achivements at once. Noo we can't play a good priest because we already played a good rogue and we want the evil achivement. Aaah guess i HAVE to play an evil priest then to get this achivement.
I understand that, and many games I never went for the achievement - in fact the majority of my ps3 games I just played normaly in.
like in the game "the last of us" to ps3, I didnt give a beep about trophies or anythng.
But anyway, as I said you seem to think certain things are only chores while I say they open up the game more for people who wouldnt otherwise.
Like Fallout 3 has achievements for every sidequest in the game and exploring 50% and 90% of the map. I find these achievements nice carrots to explore the game, over being a "chore".
Dragon Age made good use of achievements in the extra mini-adventures; each adventure had three goals that, if you met the requirements, unlocked something in the main campaign (and also gave you a badge for it). That was great because the achievement added something to the player's experience.
Dragon Age also made terrible use of achievements in the main campaign, where most of them came just through the course of playing the game.
In OMD (I'll be using that as my "shining example" here), achievements are a positive addition because they force you to become better at the game.
And this is a key reason why I do not like them, and cannot understand them. Anything that 'forces' people removes spontaneity and natural gameplay. If a game is worth exploring, then people will explore. If a game has good character interaction, then people will interact with those characters. Etc., etc.
I think you misunderstood what I meant by "force you to become better at the game." A lot of the achievements in OMD require you to, for example, complete a specific level using nothing but fire traps. You could decide to do that on your own, but the achievement gives you that challenge as something to aim for. You won't try to do it your first time through; your first time through you just want to get through the level so you can play the next one. But after you beat the game, the achievement is there to say, "Now try playing this way." Almost all of OMD's achievements are like that. It encourages you to think outside the box.
Anyone remember Goldeneye 007 for the N64? That game was all about achievements. "Complete X level on Y difficulty in Z time or less" was a great way to encourage players to become better at playing the game.
Sure, you could just have people posting speed-run times on YouTube, but when you're just playing by yourself the "target" gives you something to measure yourself against, and that's always a good thing.
Again, I don't think that's necessarily true of BG, but in general I wouldn't say achievements are bad; I would instead say that a lot of developers only use them because they have to (XBOX requires them) or because they think it's the only thing that will attract gamers to buy their game.
So lets say they have an achivement for every boss in the story, in Baldur's Gate 2 that is, and for ex as I said, to slay every dragon and collecting legendary weapons. How would that interfere or distract your experience?
Btw, Dee, you're correct about XBOX require achievements. But Bethseda keeps them in their Pc-Version. Blizzard added them to their pc exclusive games as well, for Diablo3,Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft.
I fully understand why some people dislike achievements, I just doesnt understand why people who do that feels they shouldnt be in the game at all.
Anyway as I said, I must leave my apartment now, ciao!
You could decide to do that on your own, but the achievement gives you that challenge as something to aim for.
That was my point, you could do it on your own. That was also the point of linking the other thread (minimal kill play-through, which was also listed in the video you linked). My point is that you can do it on your own, and nothing prevents you from doing so. The player sets their own standards and personal achievements, as opposed to having them set for them.
The reason why I cannot understand the modern fascination with achievements is because gaming worked well enough for the last two decades without them (two prior to the modern achievement system - I think that's synonymous with XBox360 and Steam, and Trophies are PS3 version). There are several examples of games where people have decided to explore. An example of a more 'recent' game, a literal in-game Easter egg found in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. If a game is worth exploring to its fullest, then people will do that and shouldn't need encouragement in the form of out-of-game badges and point. People in the past didn't need encouragement, why does the modern gaming generation need it?
I never understood why people played Skyrim on consoles, because you can't have mods on consoles. Anyway, achievements are silly, even more so in multiplayer games, where you're already competing with other players. And sometimes your stats are displayed on a global leaderboard, so you can brag. See, Andre Agassi never needed achievements, and neither did Tiger Woods. I'm onto something here
As long as there are some cool achievements like solo-ing, killing only the few enemies that must be killed, not using any multi or dual-class characters, beating the game without dealing any non-weapon damage, etc.
As I said anyone who think it takes "time" to add achivements are clueless. Its a small statistic addon - that's all. Every xbox360 and ps3 developer, even indie studios working on arcade games has it.
They add as much value as it takes to implement them. Slap something together and zero value. Add something meaningful and it might take more time and effort.
Plus, cards do take time and money. Why do you think manuals have dwindled in recent years?
As I said anyone who think it takes "time" to add achivements are clueless. Its a small statistic addon - that's all. Every xbox360 and ps3 developer, even indie studios working on arcade games has it.
They add as much value as it takes to implement them. Slap something together and zero value. Add something meaningful and it might take more time and effort.
Plus, cards do take time and money. Why do you think manuals have dwindled in recent years?
Ubi Soft once said that lesser manuals, or the idea of doing digital manuals isnt about saving money but being eco-friendly.
Now sure, these french "beep" might say that to be greedy and cheap and realize that most of todays young people are dumb enough to fall for it, but still that's what they claim.
People already do that today, it's called "sugar". I bought some Leverpostej recently and found out it had sugar in it... wtf?! Today everything have sugar in it for no reason beside creating "sugar addiction". No wonder it was called "honey sickness" during the roman empire, diabetes that is.
Well sugar can also be a preservative (not that that excuses many modern uses of sugar!).
But here's my pedantic nit--diabetes was described by several pre-modern cultures as a disease of the urine (since diabetics urinate frequently). More specifically, diabetes was identifiable by both frequent urination and the urine being sweet due to too much glucose (sweet and honey formerly being almost synonymous).
So, diabetes was not called "honey sickness" (or something similar) because it was believed that honey caused it, but rather because diabetic urine was sweet like honey. The interesting thing is actually the opposite of your point--people have been getting diabetes mellitus (Latin, mel: honey) for thousands of years, well before all of our food was loaded up with glucose, fructose, sucrose, HFCS, etc.
There's no longer much doubt that the big ramp up in numbers of diabetics is related to too much sugar (in any forms--including carbohydrates) in modern diets, but this understanding of diabetes is quite recent.
Achievements are pointless because of the cheat console and the ease of editing. Removing cheat console and ease of editing would prevent those of us who like playing baldur's gate the way we want to play baldur's gate the way we want.
Can't you do something else to lengthen your epeen?
Stardock said a few years ago that moving away from manuals was about conservation of effort and money savings. I'd be more likely to believe them than I would Ubi Soft.
either way, if you look at the manuals and extras (such as maps etc...) that came out with games like Pool of Radiance (Gold Box) in comparison to the manuals that come out today, you will see a SIGNIFICANT reduction in both size and content. I can see companies 'Spinning' that they are 'going green', but it takes money and effort to compile and print those things out. And with margins diminishing due to the higher cost of labor and materials and the relatively stable cost of video games in the last 5 years, I'd bet they are counting every single penny.
I can see a board meeting with excecs sitting around a conference table saying "Cut Costs!!!" followed by some marketing guy saying "We can sell it as we are environmentally conscious!!!" Then the Big Wig saying "yeah, whatever. just do it." (this example is from the banking world and in no way represents any knowledge of the gaming world.... But i bet it isn't far off).
I can see a board meeting with excecs sitting around a conference table saying "Cut Costs!!!" followed by some marketing guy saying "We can sell it as we are environmentally conscious!!!" Then the Big Wig saying "yeah, whatever. just do it." (this example is from the banking world and in no way represents any knowledge of the gaming world.... But i bet it isn't far off).
Oh, this is my theory as well. I think its Ubi Soft saving money and defending themself with being eco-friendly.
It's kind of amazing to me that even though the entire genre of computer games is only about 50 years old, we already have "video game conservatives."
Comments like "gaming worked well enough for the last two decades without them" and "[i]t's tacky, and should have no place in an RPG" sound to me like appeals for video games and RPGs to be immune to change--that the form was perfected, and that's it! Other comments about breaking immersion seem somewhat suspect to me as well (are you really that immersed when you are looking at an aerial view, tiny portraits, and selecting from multiple pre-written dialog options?).
I also really wonder if achievements were not popular on the "popular" consoles, would the same people still argue against them?
Personally, if creative, I'm all for achievements!
"Saving paper" as an environmental argument is bogus anyway. A high commercial demand for paper products increases forestry acreage (15% increase in the US over the course of the 20th century), just as demand for any crop increases its planting and cultivation. Paper use reduction is purely an economic issue. And with most modern software being distributed by download anyway, it's also completely logical.
But this whole achievement thing really just makes me roll my eyes. Although I will admit, if it would make a difference in sales without modifying the game itself I wouldn't object. But I would also be VERY surprised if it would actually make any difference. I think BG is mostly a game for adults and more serious gamers. Leave the silly pretty things for younger gamers and the console crowd.
I will only say this one last time: Achievement or not, I will still buy Baldur's Gate 2.
I thought, wrongly apparently, that by asking for something every other developer on the planet include in their game, it would just be a normal request. Apparently it means I'm a bragger who only plays (...and pay for the game) just for the achievements
I give up.
You know what, please don't add trading cards or achievements, be rebels!
Yes. And btw, I just wanted to have "Baldur's Gate 2" in showcase as my favorite game over steam. And a baldurs gate 2 profile background. Achievement wasnt the real reason, more like trading cars :O To show my support for all steam friends. And maybe make some friends curious on what BG2 was.
Comments like "gaming worked well enough for the last two decades without them" and "[i]t's tacky, and should have no place in an RPG" sound to me like appeals for video games and RPGs to be immune to change--that the form was perfected, and that's it!
Of course I'm not against change, I cannot imagine many people in the gaming community are. But I only support change when it actually changes something, and for the positive. An example of a positive change is Overhaul bringing Baldur's Gate to multiple platforms; this increases the audience as a whole, and gives greater exposure to a classic RPG.
Achievements make no difference in-game—the game itself is going to be the same with or without them, so why bother dedicating time to them at all? If people are going to make a decision on whether or not to buy a game solely based on its list of achievements or how many points it will add to your account, then... well... more power to them, I suppose, but I feel like it is missing the point of what the game is about. So, I doubt there's going to be a substantial increase in sales or audience. In other words, aside from the potential bragging rights of completing a ~15 year old game, there's going to be no discernible difference by including achievements.
And given the mod-ability of the game, achievements will have to be disabled when the user is playing with mods, or when the console is enabled. Which applies to most people who are playing on a non-mobile device.
I just remember how Wings of Liberty did their 'Achievements'. I found them completely useless. And you had to complete them to unlock content THAT I ALREADY PAID FOR!!!
I just remember how Wings of Liberty did their 'Achievements'. I found them completely useless. And you had to complete them to unlock content THAT I ALREADY PAID FOR!!!
Ok, getting down off of the clock tower now...
Nothing to see here. Move along.....
"Content that I paid for" Achievement profile pictures are clearly a way to let people know what you done in the past or not. Yes, someone with the Achievement 500 win with protoss is an easy way to say- look im good with Protoss, we can do 2vs2 together etc. This system was already in Warcraft 3. Not to brag but, I was the 4th guy in Europe to get the 1500 win orc Achievement profile picture.
Just this week Shadowrun Returns was released (turn-based RPG) and the developer (another small team) said they are not going to make achievements. And the game is only available on Steam, the home apparent of PC achievements.
Q: Are you planning to include any Steam Achievements? A: We're not planning Steam achievements right now but we may try to sneak them in.
While I think the exclusion of achievements is a good thing, I do hope they stick to that.
(I just look at all the people going "when can we get achievements for shadowrun?? will you be doing them?? when can we have them?? whyaretheynotalreadytherewhencanwehavethem????" and I just think... "How about playing the game instead of spending time asking for achievements?" The game has been out for a total of three days (depending on your time-zone) and people still keep asking.)
Comments
There are games where it doesn't matter at all, no positive or negative parts to it : Fallout new vegas
There are games where it doesn't belong at all : Baldur's Gate.
My opinion.
And Bioware's Dragon Age 1 and 2?
But thats your opinion.
I know 10+ people over the xbox360 and pc who hunted all the achievements for Dragon Age.
Check my gamertag "Quezcotl" and see what I racked up for the xbox-version. I also have the pc version over steam.
The reason it works with Dark souls is because it's already so hard, that doing the achivements is a challenge above the normal game.
[Edited]:
My brother used to hunt achivements on the Xbox360 and nothing made me as sad as watching him throw away games and sell them again after he got the achivements. The games weren't important to him nor did he enjoy playing them, he just did it to get more achivements. It sickes me to see grown up men buy childrens games to the Xbox360 so they can get even more achivement points.
I see achivement as a carrot for some people to try something new.
If you had an achivement to reach level 20 mage, 20 rogue and 20 warrior - it was a carrot for people to try all diffrent classes.
That is my guess why Bioware added it. Or it could be just to make sure everyone who reached 20 can prove it.
Anyway, im going out and I will watch the women soccer/football - Denmark vs Norway, its a way to trick women into being a feminist!
You played as good? Now do it as evil! You done playing as evil? Now do it as neutral! = 3 times through game.
You play as mage? Now play as fighter! Now as rogue! ... = 3-6 more playthroughs
What is this? You played on easy? What about normal.. nightmare... WHAT ABOUT ULTRA HARDCORE!? = 4 more playthroughs.
And smart people.. They tailor their games so they can get as many achivements at once. Noo we can't play a good priest because we already played a good rogue and we want the evil achivement. Aaah guess i HAVE to play an evil priest then to get this achivement.
like in the game "the last of us" to ps3, I didnt give a beep about trophies or anythng.
But anyway, as I said you seem to think certain things are only chores while I say they open up the game more for people who wouldnt otherwise.
Like Fallout 3 has achievements for every sidequest in the game and exploring 50% and 90% of the map. I find these achievements nice carrots to explore the game, over being a "chore".
Dragon Age also made terrible use of achievements in the main campaign, where most of them came just through the course of playing the game. I think you misunderstood what I meant by "force you to become better at the game." A lot of the achievements in OMD require you to, for example, complete a specific level using nothing but fire traps. You could decide to do that on your own, but the achievement gives you that challenge as something to aim for. You won't try to do it your first time through; your first time through you just want to get through the level so you can play the next one. But after you beat the game, the achievement is there to say, "Now try playing this way." Almost all of OMD's achievements are like that. It encourages you to think outside the box.
Anyone remember Goldeneye 007 for the N64? That game was all about achievements. "Complete X level on Y difficulty in Z time or less" was a great way to encourage players to become better at playing the game.
Sure, you could just have people posting speed-run times on YouTube, but when you're just playing by yourself the "target" gives you something to measure yourself against, and that's always a good thing.
Again, I don't think that's necessarily true of BG, but in general I wouldn't say achievements are bad; I would instead say that a lot of developers only use them because they have to (XBOX requires them) or because they think it's the only thing that will attract gamers to buy their game.
How would that interfere or distract your experience?
Btw, Dee, you're correct about XBOX require achievements. But Bethseda keeps them in their Pc-Version.
Blizzard added them to their pc exclusive games as well, for Diablo3,Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft.
I fully understand why some people dislike achievements, I just doesnt understand why people who do that feels they shouldnt be in the game at all.
Anyway as I said, I must leave my apartment now, ciao!
The reason why I cannot understand the modern fascination with achievements is because gaming worked well enough for the last two decades without them (two prior to the modern achievement system - I think that's synonymous with XBox360 and Steam, and Trophies are PS3 version). There are several examples of games where people have decided to explore. An example of a more 'recent' game, a literal in-game Easter egg found in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. If a game is worth exploring to its fullest, then people will do that and shouldn't need encouragement in the form of out-of-game badges and point. People in the past didn't need encouragement, why does the modern gaming generation need it?
Plus, cards do take time and money. Why do you think manuals have dwindled in recent years?
Now sure, these french "beep" might say that to be greedy and cheap and realize that most of todays young people are dumb enough to fall for it, but still that's what they claim.
But here's my pedantic nit--diabetes was described by several pre-modern cultures as a disease of the urine (since diabetics urinate frequently). More specifically, diabetes was identifiable by both frequent urination and the urine being sweet due to too much glucose (sweet and honey formerly being almost synonymous).
So, diabetes was not called "honey sickness" (or something similar) because it was believed that honey caused it, but rather because diabetic urine was sweet like honey. The interesting thing is actually the opposite of your point--people have been getting diabetes mellitus (Latin, mel: honey) for thousands of years, well before all of our food was loaded up with glucose, fructose, sucrose, HFCS, etc.
There's no longer much doubt that the big ramp up in numbers of diabetics is related to too much sugar (in any forms--including carbohydrates) in modern diets, but this understanding of diabetes is quite recent.
Achievements are pointless because of the cheat console and the ease of editing.
Removing cheat console and ease of editing would prevent those of us who like playing baldur's gate the way we want to play baldur's gate the way we want.
Can't you do something else to lengthen your epeen?
either way, if you look at the manuals and extras (such as maps etc...) that came out with games like Pool of Radiance (Gold Box) in comparison to the manuals that come out today, you will see a SIGNIFICANT reduction in both size and content. I can see companies 'Spinning' that they are 'going green', but it takes money and effort to compile and print those things out. And with margins diminishing due to the higher cost of labor and materials and the relatively stable cost of video games in the last 5 years, I'd bet they are counting every single penny.
I can see a board meeting with excecs sitting around a conference table saying "Cut Costs!!!" followed by some marketing guy saying "We can sell it as we are environmentally conscious!!!" Then the Big Wig saying "yeah, whatever. just do it." (this example is from the banking world and in no way represents any knowledge of the gaming world.... But i bet it isn't far off).
Oh, this is my theory as well.
I think its Ubi Soft saving money and defending themself with being eco-friendly.
It's kind of amazing to me that even though the entire genre of computer games is only about 50 years old, we already have "video game conservatives."
Comments like "gaming worked well enough for the last two decades without them" and "[i]t's tacky, and should have no place in an RPG" sound to me like appeals for video games and RPGs to be immune to change--that the form was perfected, and that's it! Other comments about breaking immersion seem somewhat suspect to me as well (are you really that immersed when you are looking at an aerial view, tiny portraits, and selecting from multiple pre-written dialog options?).
I also really wonder if achievements were not popular on the "popular" consoles, would the same people still argue against them?
Personally, if creative, I'm all for achievements!
But this whole achievement thing really just makes me roll my eyes. Although I will admit, if it would make a difference in sales without modifying the game itself I wouldn't object. But I would also be VERY surprised if it would actually make any difference. I think BG is mostly a game for adults and more serious gamers. Leave the silly pretty things for younger gamers and the console crowd.
I thought, wrongly apparently, that by asking for something every other developer on the planet include in their game, it would just be a normal request. Apparently it means I'm a bragger who only plays (...and pay for the game) just for the achievements
I give up.
You know what, please don't add trading cards or achievements, be rebels!
Mods or something can lock this thread.
And btw, I just wanted to have "Baldur's Gate 2" in showcase as my favorite game over steam. And a baldurs gate 2 profile background. Achievement wasnt the real reason, more like trading cars :O To show my support for all steam friends. And maybe make some friends curious on what BG2 was.
Achievements make no difference in-game—the game itself is going to be the same with or without them, so why bother dedicating time to them at all? If people are going to make a decision on whether or not to buy a game solely based on its list of achievements or how many points it will add to your account, then... well... more power to them, I suppose, but I feel like it is missing the point of what the game is about. So, I doubt there's going to be a substantial increase in sales or audience. In other words, aside from the potential bragging rights of completing a ~15 year old game, there's going to be no discernible difference by including achievements.
And given the mod-ability of the game, achievements will have to be disabled when the user is playing with mods, or when the console is enabled. Which applies to most people who are playing on a non-mobile device.
I'm not seeing any positives here...
Ok, getting down off of the clock tower now...
Nothing to see here. Move along.....
Yes, someone with the Achievement 500 win with protoss is an easy way to say- look im good with Protoss, we can do 2vs2 together etc.
This system was already in Warcraft 3. Not to brag but, I was the 4th guy in Europe to get the 1500 win orc Achievement profile picture.
(I just look at all the people going "when can we get achievements for shadowrun?? will you be doing them?? when can we have them?? whyaretheynotalreadytherewhencanwehavethem????" and I just think... "How about playing the game instead of spending time asking for achievements?" The game has been out for a total of three days (depending on your time-zone) and people still keep asking.)