Steam achievements suggestion

Saint_Scylla

Hello,

I understand this suggestion might not be popular with most of this forum's dwellers, who could argue that the devs should focus on the actual gameplay - a valid point - or may dislike Steam as a distribution platform - indeed players should buy games directly from the devs' website when available.

However, I don't mind being lynched, the fact is that Steam nowadays reprents 70 to 80% of the online sales of most games, and achievements have a proven positive impact on games' long term sales (which is why they exist in the first place) as they increase the virality and the perceived entertainment value of the games. If you're not familiar with them, they work kind of like the badges of this forum.

Here are some examples for BG:EE:
- rescue Dynaheir from her captors
- complete Dorn's story quest
- find and equip the Sword of Balduran
- enter the city of Baldur's Gate
- survive Durlag's Tower
- discover all surface maps
- complete the game with a very high / very low reputation
- complete the game in solo
- Black Pits: complete the Tier 1, escape from the Pits, kill Ghlouralk the Beholder

Since Beamdog hasn't included achievements in the Steam versions of BG:EE and BG2:EE I doubt they'll ever do it, but it's worth suggesting anyway (unless of course this would already have been debated elsewhere).

How do you feel about it?

elminster

Steam really needs a proper way to disable achievement notifications/achievements. Merely disabling the steam interface isn't really a solution. Being notified about it mid-game is probably one of the biggest issues people are going to have with it (along with the achievements themselves being a joke).

Sylvus_Moonbow

I've always felt such achievements are nothing more than out of game information, that could easily deter from roleplaying the choices presented, just so you can get some badge.

There will also need to be a balance with achievements in Baldur's Gate.

Here are my examples for BG:EE:

- failed the Gellana and Samuel quest for taking too long.
- couldn't beat Drizzt using exploits.
- got ripped off by Zeke. Loser.
- first death by wolf. Imoen was useless.
- killed a talking chicken.

So to make achievements useful, is not to have the full display of those achievements on Steam. You'd only get them if they existed, but you couldn't know what they are until you achieve them.

JuliusBorisov

When I'm asked about how do I feel regarding the BG achievements suggestion, I should point to the forum rulebook called "If BG came out today..."

Having opened this book, we should check rules number 25, number 70 and number 71.

They provide for the following:

"The first achievement would be "A helping hand - Retrieved Phyllidia's Book" - 100 gamepoints."

"There would be an achievement to kill Drizzt."

"There would be an achievement to kill Goriont."

Also, by parity of reasoning we should consult with the rule number 161 which reads:

"It would be Facebook compatible so it could constantly spam the gamers' friends with updates like "Charname just teamed up with Jaheira and Khalid in Baldur's Gate", "Charname reached Beregost in Baldur's Gate", and "Charname has trouble in the the Ulcaster Ruins. Can you spare them any enchanted weapons?"

elminster

To be fair this forum is also facebook compatible. So we are halfway there already

Sylvus_Moonbow

elminster said:

To be fair this forum is also facebook compatible. So we are halfway there already

You just achieved the "Shared Laughs with Elminster over Coffee" badge!

The_New_Romance

Oh no, please, no. Nobody needs achievements. They're just food pellets for the pigeon masses, and I prefer my games to be games and not Skinner boxes messing with my mind.

Mathsorcerer

Achievements and badges in games are for kindergarteners. This is, in fact, the one thing I detest about FONV: *drink a purified water* "oh, look--I earned 'Camel of the Mojave'". Really? Who cares? What am I going to do with that "achievement", brag about it? Print it out, frame it, and hang it on the wall? *roll eyes* Whatever...at least my dehydration counter went back down.

No achievements in IWDEE--it doesn't need them, regardless of the platform being used.

CoryNewb

I like steam achievements for certain games, but don't need them for games like this. If they added them it could add some value to borderline purchasers, but most of us here buy through the beamdog site to support overhaul.

Saint_Scylla

@elminster: if you turn off the overlay (Steam / Settings / In-Game: Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game) and don't use the Activity feed, the achievements would virtually have no existence.

@Sylvus_Moonbow: I'm all for mystery achievements! Devs can hide achievements, typically easter eggs stuff, from the public list. It's also up to them to keep it enigmatic and refrain from spoiling what's to be done. My first example "rescue Dynaheir from her captors" doesn't say anything about her location, the nature of her captors, or her link to Minsc.

CoryNewb said:

I like steam achievements for certain games, but don't need them for games like this. If they added them it could add some value to borderline purchasers, but most of us here buy through the beamdog site to support overhaul.

While roleplayers are quite the opposite of achievement hunters, an achievement is the confirmation of the completion of a challenge, minor or major. Wouldn't the participants of the Challenges and Playthroughs enjoy it? http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/challenges-and-playthroughs

elminster

Saint_Scylla said:

@elminster: if you turn off the overlay (Steam / Settings / In-Game: Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game) and don't use the Activity feed, the achievements would virtually have no existence.

Yea I know. Having to disable it to avoid seeing the notifications for it really isn't a particularly good solution however since it bars you from viewing game guides or many of the other things you might want to look at while in-game (at least without alt-tabbing). Not to mention you have to go back and re-enable it every time you want to have the overlay active for any other game.

Additionally the game doesn't really keep track of much from a game statistic standpoint and Icewind Dale has a lot less in the way of quests than Baldur's Gate (so its not like you could really base them on those). So I'm not sure how feasible they would even be.

Faydark

@elminster so it sounds like we need to petition Valve to have an option to "Disable toasts/notifications while in game" in Steam, and then everyone could be served =D

Given the variety of challenge and playthrough threads on these forums, I think achievements could be a great addition to the game, providing that they don't take too much time away from normal development work.

"Complete the game on normal difficulty with a solo thief" or "Complete a playthrough on normal difficulty without CHARNAME dying"

Unfortunately, I don't think it will ever happen, because the game isn't "secured" enough and it would be a monumental effort to secure it so that people can't cheat their way to the achievements. Also as you mention, there's probably not a lot of tracking built in currently either.

Ah well, one can only suggest features, every OPTIONAL feature is an improvement imo. =D

meagloth

Hrm