How would you check for mods/cheats/save editors having been used?
Cheats, yes. As this could be detected using a coded variable that is influenced by the Debug Mode setting in the initialisation file. Modding, on the other hand, is a difficult one. I suppose a checksum to make sure all the files are original, and make sure that there are no files in the override folder?
Save game editing is even more difficult, but it really depends on the saving algorithm, assuming that it undergoes some form of encryption (most do, even if it's only the first few bytes of the file that tell the game certain details, some games check store an encrypted checksum of the file at the start. It then checks that against the current actual checksum of the file in order to make sure they are what they should be, and if edited it says it won't load). If a save game editor can mimic that, then there is no way to prevent cheating via a save game editor. Which effectively throws achievements for games like Dark Souls, that have an editor, out the window.
How the f would I know? i'm not a programmer working in the industry - wakey pakey dummy, I know though that if the game detect cheat/mods usually the achievement system get disabled.
Achievements were launched with console games and then spread over to MMORPGs, both settings in which the player has very limited influence in terms of modding or editing. For a game using the infinity engine, with so many editors available and so many aspects open to various forms of modification, achievements - even if it were a good idea to include them to begin with - would be meaningless.
Furthermore, even if, like you claim, including achievements themselves wouldn't take up a lot of time and resources, implementing a rigorous security system that was to detect any kind of mod usage or save file editing certainly would. Once more, time and resources that could be much, much better spent.
Then you guys should protest and advocate that Blizzard,Bioware and Bethesda to name a few stop "wasting time" on Achievements - which I suspect only takes a few days to add at the most.
Then you guys should protest and advocate that Blizzard,Bioware and Bethesda to name a few stop "wasting time" on Achievements - which I suspect only takes a few days to add at the most.
Those games were written with the intent of supporting achievements. The developers you mentioned are also massive companies with hundreds of developers at their disposal, for games that are bought and played by millions.
Baldur's Gate EE by comparison has a significantly smaller user-base, and the development team is extremely small.
You are talking about a massive task to add checks to code for checking that the game is unmodded, that a save game is not edited (likely not possible without blocking existing saves), that cheats have never been used in any part of a game.
At the minimum, that's still weeks-months of development and beta testing with the staff that they have.
Then there's the development it would take to check the state of the game for new achievements earned. How frequently should it be checked? How will this impact the performance of the game?
Then there's adding a user interface screen for showing you the achievements you've earned, haven't earned, and adding the user interface notifications for showing when you earned an achievement. Where should the screen be located? How should the screen look? How should achievements be organized? How should the notifications appear in such a way that they won't interfere with gameplay?
And of course: What achievements should there be?
Altogether, it's a several month process requiring the time of several developers and designers, along with numerous beta testers. Don't think for a minute that this is effortless just because Blizzard, Bioware, and Bethesda, have the sheer manpower to do it quickly. Even for World of Warcraft, Blizzard spent months on the achievement system.
I hate achievements and I hate bolted on multi-player (the kind that lets you experience the original game content together with friends is not of that kind, as long as it works, and there are games where a multiplayer part is natural to the genre).
I also hate that both seem to stem from some mainstream general consensus that these things are "needed" and "essential" to games - any game - nowadays (yeeeah, I might not be able to back that up…).
I hate hearing an effing, immersive breaking *ding* followed by an immersive breaking text pop-up with the oh, so vital info that I'm now a "door opener - you opened a door!" in the middle of an event, scripted or player controlled.
*ding* "you cleared chapter 6 - like every other bleeping person at this stage, aren't you happy we told you?". Ugh.
Even worse in a game like BG if it forces you to play the game in a less natural (?) way. The Drizzt encounters where charname sneaks off with a certain pair of scimitars are at least player driven but if there was an achievement for splitting him in half and stealing his stuff… Again, ugh. It's an RPG. To extent the incentive can come from within the physical player (that is, to the extent game mechanics allow for) shouldn't we let that be the case?
Do you really need all this to feel good about your in-game efforts - and overly explicit at that? Then maybe take a step back and ponder whether you actually liked the game/genre in the first place. I mean if the game itself isn't enough to keep you interested, then I'm not sure why you play at all. Maybe you actually like meta-gaming more than what the devs actually spent time and effort on - the very reason for game's existence.
If it's about becoming better at a game, then we should at the very least acknowledge that achievements aren't "needed" for *every* [kind of] game. For example, if Street Fighter acknowledges a super combo during play/training to let you know you pulled it off, great. That can have actual consequences in that it tips you off how to pull it off. Competitive games are a much, much better target than a game like BG will ever be. I certainly don't need to hear that I'm a "poisoner!" with my assassin the first time an enemy fails a save or get a "Super!" grade for finishing a hard battle without losses. It's quite obvious already and makes for a better charname story afterwards without them. It will be me doing the telling not a check list generated by the game.
So, easter eggs? Absolutely - leave those in. This is not about being super serious all the time. Those are more of an in-game surprise, giggle etc that kind of takes place within the game's context.
I can't help but wonder what kind of incentive future generations will need to finish a book/movie/concert. And I mean a book/movie/artist they've already confessed to that they love to bits. Ooops, too late.
Sorry, I'm calm now. And just a tad bitter because I feel this extends to other, completely different areas in life today but I'm starting to sound like I'm angrily waving my walking stick (no, I don't have one) in ignorance at "youngsters" so I'll stop. I'm not that old and I've already made a fool out of myself.
Can I co-exist with achievements? Yes, if, and only if, I can turn it off *completely*. At least, we're both happy in that case. So if it can be completely turned off, helps indie sales more than they cost to put in… *sigh* Go ahead, I guess...
Then you guys should protest and advocate that Blizzard,Bioware and Bethesda to name a few stop "wasting time" on Achievements - which I suspect only takes a few days to add at the most.
I suspect a programmer would snicker - or rage - or maybe both - at your suggestion that a major software change takes "only a few days" to implement.
The programmers would have to figure out (probably with the "help" of some marketing dude who doesn't understand programming but thinks it would be "cool") what exactly should constitute a particular "achievement", how it should be checked in the code that the achievement has actually been achieved, implement it, test that you get the achievement when you have earned it, that you don't get it under other circumstances, and that it doesn't break something else. I remember enough programming from my university days to know that you don't implement and test something like this in what is already a pretty complicated piece of software "in a few days".
Now multiply this by the number of achievements you want in the game...
Then you guys should protest and advocate that Blizzard,Bioware and Bethesda to name a few stop "wasting time" on Achievements - which I suspect only takes a few days to add at the most.
Wait so its gone from being a "small statistic addon - that's all" to being "a few days at most"?
Like I wrote earlier there are approximately 1800 other feature requests that have been made. If this is going to take only days (not counting any time it might take to get approval for a change) what makes your proposal any more important than (to name a few which I may/may not agree with) ...
The reason why I said that is because one developer, forgot which, during an interview with gamespot said they hadnt added any achievements yet to their game when asked what kind of achievements there would be. That was like 2 months before release date. And, he said they will make up some at a later date with the team together, and promised some fun ones. And yes, I suspect it didnt take 2 months, nor that it would take massive amount of planning to add it.
Then you guys should protest and advocate that Blizzard,Bioware and Bethesda to name a few stop "wasting time" on Achievements - which I suspect only takes a few days to add at the most.
Those games were written with the intent of supporting achievements. The developers you mentioned are also massive companies with hundreds of developers at their disposal, for games that are bought and played by millions.
Baldur's Gate EE by comparison has a significantly smaller user-base, and the development team is extremely small.
You are talking about a massive task to add checks to code for checking that the game is unmodded, that a save game is not edited (likely not possible without blocking existing saves), that cheats have never been used in any part of a game.
At the minimum, that's still weeks-months of development and beta testing with the staff that they have.
Then there's the development it would take to check the state of the game for new achievements earned. How frequently should it be checked? How will this impact the performance of the game?
Then there's adding a user interface screen for showing you the achievements you've earned, haven't earned, and adding the user interface notifications for showing when you earned an achievement. Where should the screen be located? How should the screen look? How should achievements be organized? How should the notifications appear in such a way that they won't interfere with gameplay?
And of course: What achievements should there be?
Altogether, it's a several month process requiring the time of several developers and designers, along with numerous beta testers. Don't think for a minute that this is effortless just because Blizzard, Bioware, and Bethesda, have the sheer manpower to do it quickly. Even for World of Warcraft, Blizzard spent months on the achievement system.
"few days to add at the most"....smh.
@Padenton You hit the nail on the head with that one.
Let's not forget that all of this effort would only be for a particular set of people; namely, the people using Steam. So all the so-called benefits of achievements won't apply to people not using Steam. If someone wanted to avoid 'noobs', then they must stay away from just about every non-Steam player since there is no way to check.
I have no idea, but I'm not sure if Beamdog even do achievements through their client. So, really... um, rewarding people for using someone elses' client over your own? That doesn't sound like a good business plan.
I don't feel the BG series really needs an achievements scheme.I wouldn't bother it was added either for that matter but leveling up or finally getting the cash to buy that item you want is achievement enough in these sort of games.As always everyone to their own but really BG doesn't need it,there's already enough content to keep the game entertaining and replayble.
To be honest if i had to put up with 'well done you've killed you first ogre' or 'well done you've completed your first map area' or 'well done,you've achieved the "I can't be arsed with Imoen achievement"award'.It would seriously start to piss me me off but whatever turns you on.
Baldur's Gate 2 had Neverwinter advs after loading... what would you call that?
Anyway, the Neverwinter Nights clip that plays after installing only plays once, and it's not mid-game. Its original purposes were to advertise and also to test and make sure the user had the most current (at the time) version of DirectX installed (the message before it plays advises the user to update if they have any problems watching the video playback).
Even though it is from an entirely different game, immersion breaking would require that the player is immersed to begin with. Since the game isn't actually being played at that time, one can safely assume that the user is not currently immersed - thus cannot have any non-existent immersion broken. Immersion, immersion, something, something.
Speaking as someone who spent a stupid amount of time in WoW farming the "Insane in the Membrane" Achievement, please never do this. I can't go down that road again.
I never saw that hint. I assume it's not actually possible, though, given the differences in the game mechanics.
(I went and installed the original BG2 so I could try and look for a string and, sure enough, it's there "The adventure does not have to end once you have finished BG2. Neverwinter Nights will allow you to import your BG2 character." It must be because of the mostly random seed that puts a particular hint up (or perhaps they patched it out later?).)
Actually, as an addendum to my original post, it's actually the Icewind Dale promo.exe that plays after the game installs. The Neverwinter clip is one you have to go looking for.
On that note, I also don't see how loadscreen tips can be compared to an achievement system. Coming to think of it, I'd be fine with it if "achievements" were limited to lines of text that said things like "Hey, did you try playing through the game without reloading?" while the game loaded. No ingame pop ups, no gamerscore, no e-peen comparisons, just low-key tips on things you could do to increase challenge or bring variety for those not inclined to think such things up themselves.
The fundamental flaw with achievements is that they aren't true trophies. - When you gain an achievement, you didn't discover something new, you did exactly as planned. As it is, Killing Drizzt is a literal achievement - you are not supposed to try, let alone to be able to kill him. Once slaying him becomes a game mechanic, it's no longer special. - When you try to get them all, you don't play the game for it's own sake, but to trudge around all the events the designers impelemented. - When you get achievements for ordinary actions like picking a lock, or slaying 20 sich gibberlings, it's not even worth the title 'achievement'.
The more I think about it, the more pointless achievements become to me.
Red Dragon Scale, on the other hand, is a true *achievement* in BG II. Think about it, its rare, you have to work really hard to get it, and it's useful (- and once you have it you still are the only one who really gives a damn).
@Troodon80 - you can't actually import your BG character (or Iwd) character into NWN. That was the original scope and intent, but it never panned out. Different rules sets among other things made it not viable (presumably).
@Calmar - I don't buy that you are "supposed to try" to kill Drizzt. I agree that you CAN try if you are so inclined, and it is very achievable. But it isn't intended to be a requirement to complete the game.
Beyond that, I agree that most achievements are merely bragging rights and only as valuable as someone's desire too brag about stuff to friends etc... I personally don't see the need for them, but so long as developing them doesn't (a) take time/resources away from developing the game and (b) doesn't lock off content in the game until you unlock them, and (c) doesn't in any way cause me to have to pay more to play the game, I'm cool with other people wanting them. If people want trading cards, I say let them get the Special edition. That way we are sure to not have to pay for extras and those that want extras can foot the bill.
To say something in favour of @raxtoren 's demand, I like the achievement system of our message board just fine. I think it makes much more sense here than ingame - you get a nice overview about the activity and reputation of the folks.
Then you guys should protest and advocate that Blizzard,Bioware and Bethesda to name a few stop "wasting time" on Achievements - which I suspect only takes a few days to add at the most.
Those games were written with the intent of supporting achievements. The developers you mentioned are also massive companies with hundreds of developers at their disposal, for games that are bought and played by millions.
Baldur's Gate EE by comparison has a significantly smaller user-base, and the development team is extremely small.
You are talking about a massive task to add checks to code for checking that the game is unmodded, that a save game is not edited (likely not possible without blocking existing saves), that cheats have never been used in any part of a game.
At the minimum, that's still weeks-months of development and beta testing with the staff that they have.
Then there's the development it would take to check the state of the game for new achievements earned. How frequently should it be checked? How will this impact the performance of the game?
Then there's adding a user interface screen for showing you the achievements you've earned, haven't earned, and adding the user interface notifications for showing when you earned an achievement. Where should the screen be located? How should the screen look? How should achievements be organized? How should the notifications appear in such a way that they won't interfere with gameplay?
And of course: What achievements should there be?
Altogether, it's a several month process requiring the time of several developers and designers, along with numerous beta testers. Don't think for a minute that this is effortless just because Blizzard, Bioware, and Bethesda, have the sheer manpower to do it quickly. Even for World of Warcraft, Blizzard spent months on the achievement system.
"few days to add at the most"....smh.
While I don't care for Achievements, these arguments are just silly. Take the example of spiderweb games, RPGs written by ONE person, who when they got to steam added achievements and said on his blog it was extremely easy. It does not even require days of work...
Also I don't see any problem with cheats and mods, if players want to mod the game so they get the achievements easier it's their loss, almost no game checks for that and nobody has a problem with it. Probably because nobody wants achievements that much to actually do it.
Comments
Save game editing is even more difficult, but it really depends on the saving algorithm, assuming that it undergoes some form of encryption (most do, even if it's only the first few bytes of the file that tell the game certain details, some games check store an encrypted checksum of the file at the start. It then checks that against the current actual checksum of the file in order to make sure they are what they should be, and if edited it says it won't load). If a save game editor can mimic that, then there is no way to prevent cheating via a save game editor. Which effectively throws achievements for games like Dark Souls, that have an editor, out the window.
Furthermore, even if, like you claim, including achievements themselves wouldn't take up a lot of time and resources, implementing a rigorous security system that was to detect any kind of mod usage or save file editing certainly would. Once more, time and resources that could be much, much better spent.
Baldur's Gate EE by comparison has a significantly smaller user-base, and the development team is extremely small.
You are talking about a massive task to add checks to code for checking that the game is unmodded, that a save game is not edited (likely not possible without blocking existing saves), that cheats have never been used in any part of a game.
At the minimum, that's still weeks-months of development and beta testing with the staff that they have.
Then there's the development it would take to check the state of the game for new achievements earned. How frequently should it be checked? How will this impact the performance of the game?
Then there's adding a user interface screen for showing you the achievements you've earned, haven't earned, and adding the user interface notifications for showing when you earned an achievement. Where should the screen be located? How should the screen look? How should achievements be organized? How should the notifications appear in such a way that they won't interfere with gameplay?
And of course: What achievements should there be?
Altogether, it's a several month process requiring the time of several developers and designers, along with numerous beta testers.
Don't think for a minute that this is effortless just because Blizzard, Bioware, and Bethesda, have the sheer manpower to do it quickly. Even for World of Warcraft, Blizzard spent months on the achievement system.
"few days to add at the most"....smh.
I also hate that both seem to stem from some mainstream general consensus that these things are "needed" and "essential" to games - any game - nowadays (yeeeah, I might not be able to back that up…).
I hate hearing an effing, immersive breaking *ding* followed by an immersive breaking text pop-up with the oh, so vital info that I'm now a "door opener - you opened a door!" in the middle of an event, scripted or player controlled.
*ding* "you cleared chapter 6 - like every other bleeping person at this stage, aren't you happy we told you?". Ugh.
Even worse in a game like BG if it forces you to play the game in a less natural (?) way. The Drizzt encounters where charname sneaks off with a certain pair of scimitars are at least player driven but if there was an achievement for splitting him in half and stealing his stuff… Again, ugh. It's an RPG. To extent the incentive can come from within the physical player (that is, to the extent game mechanics allow for) shouldn't we let that be the case?
Do you really need all this to feel good about your in-game efforts - and overly explicit at that? Then maybe take a step back and ponder whether you actually liked the game/genre in the first place. I mean if the game itself isn't enough to keep you interested, then I'm not sure why you play at all. Maybe you actually like meta-gaming more than what the devs actually spent time and effort on - the very reason for game's existence.
If it's about becoming better at a game, then we should at the very least acknowledge that achievements aren't "needed" for *every* [kind of] game. For example, if Street Fighter acknowledges a super combo during play/training to let you know you pulled it off, great. That can have actual consequences in that it tips you off how to pull it off. Competitive games are a much, much better target than a game like BG will ever be. I certainly don't need to hear that I'm a "poisoner!" with my assassin the first time an enemy fails a save or get a "Super!" grade for finishing a hard battle without losses. It's quite obvious already and makes for a better charname story afterwards without them. It will be me doing the telling not a check list generated by the game.
So, easter eggs? Absolutely - leave those in. This is not about being super serious all the time. Those are more of an in-game surprise, giggle etc that kind of takes place within the game's context.
I can't help but wonder what kind of incentive future generations will need to finish a book/movie/concert. And I mean a book/movie/artist they've already confessed to that they love to bits. Ooops, too late.
Sorry, I'm calm now. And just a tad bitter because I feel this extends to other, completely different areas in life today but I'm starting to sound like I'm angrily waving my walking stick (no, I don't have one) in ignorance at "youngsters" so I'll stop. I'm not that old and I've already made a fool out of myself.
Can I co-exist with achievements? Yes, if, and only if, I can turn it off *completely*. At least, we're both happy in that case. So if it can be completely turned off, helps indie sales more than they cost to put in… *sigh* Go ahead, I guess...
The programmers would have to figure out (probably with the "help" of some marketing dude who doesn't understand programming but thinks it would be "cool") what exactly should constitute a particular "achievement", how it should be checked in the code that the achievement has actually been achieved, implement it, test that you get the achievement when you have earned it, that you don't get it under other circumstances, and that it doesn't break something else. I remember enough programming from my university days to know that you don't implement and test something like this in what is already a pretty complicated piece of software "in a few days".
Now multiply this by the number of achievements you want in the game...
Like I wrote earlier there are approximately 1800 other feature requests that have been made. If this is going to take only days (not counting any time it might take to get approval for a change) what makes your proposal any more important than (to name a few which I may/may not agree with) ...
Having a black pits wall of fame here
Monsters killed counter in game here
Show damage calculations as an option in game here
An XP bar here
All of whom took the time to at least file their requests under feature requests months ago.
That was like 2 months before release date. And, he said they will make up some at a later date with the team together, and promised some fun ones.
And yes, I suspect it didnt take 2 months, nor that it would take massive amount of planning to add it.
To be fair, 50% of those requests are to make Minsc a Berserker, Mazzy a Paladin, and Anomen a eunuch.
And another 1-2% is probably to add drow as a playable race
I love me some Drow.
Or am I supposed to say "This."?
I mean, my memories from BG2 13 years ago.
I have no idea, but I'm not sure if Beamdog even do achievements through their client. So, really... um, rewarding people for using someone elses' client over your own? That doesn't sound like a good business plan.
I, and many, would just appreciate it over steam.
To be honest if i had to put up with 'well done you've killed you first ogre' or 'well done you've completed your first map area' or 'well done,you've achieved the "I can't be arsed with Imoen achievement"award'.It would seriously start to piss me me off but whatever turns you on.
Even though it is from an entirely different game, immersion breaking would require that the player is immersed to begin with. Since the game isn't actually being played at that time, one can safely assume that the user is not currently immersed - thus cannot have any non-existent immersion broken. Immersion, immersion, something, something.
You get the idea, I'm sure. :P
I never saw that hint. I assume it's not actually possible, though, given the differences in the game mechanics.
(I went and installed the original BG2 so I could try and look for a string and, sure enough, it's there "The adventure does not have to end once you have finished BG2. Neverwinter Nights will allow you to import your BG2 character." It must be because of the mostly random seed that puts a particular hint up (or perhaps they patched it out later?).)
Actually, as an addendum to my original post, it's actually the Icewind Dale promo.exe that plays after the game installs. The Neverwinter clip is one you have to go looking for.
On that note, I also don't see how loadscreen tips can be compared to an achievement system. Coming to think of it, I'd be fine with it if "achievements" were limited to lines of text that said things like "Hey, did you try playing through the game without reloading?" while the game loaded. No ingame pop ups, no gamerscore, no e-peen comparisons, just low-key tips on things you could do to increase challenge or bring variety for those not inclined to think such things up themselves.
- When you gain an achievement, you didn't discover something new, you did exactly as planned. As it is, Killing Drizzt is a literal achievement - you are not supposed to try, let alone to be able to kill him. Once slaying him becomes a game mechanic, it's no longer special.
- When you try to get them all, you don't play the game for it's own sake, but to trudge around all the events the designers impelemented.
- When you get achievements for ordinary actions like picking a lock, or slaying 20 sich gibberlings, it's not even worth the title 'achievement'.
The more I think about it, the more pointless achievements become to me.
Red Dragon Scale, on the other hand, is a true *achievement* in BG II. Think about it, its rare, you have to work really hard to get it, and it's useful (- and once you have it you still are the only one who really gives a damn).
@Calmar - I don't buy that you are "supposed to try" to kill Drizzt. I agree that you CAN try if you are so inclined, and it is very achievable. But it isn't intended to be a requirement to complete the game.
Beyond that, I agree that most achievements are merely bragging rights and only as valuable as someone's desire too brag about stuff to friends etc... I personally don't see the need for them, but so long as developing them doesn't (a) take time/resources away from developing the game and (b) doesn't lock off content in the game until you unlock them, and (c) doesn't in any way cause me to have to pay more to play the game, I'm cool with other people wanting them. If people want trading cards, I say let them get the Special edition. That way we are sure to not have to pay for extras and those that want extras can foot the bill.
Also I don't see any problem with cheats and mods, if players want to mod the game so they get the achievements easier it's their loss, almost no game checks for that and nobody has a problem with it. Probably because nobody wants achievements that much to actually do it.