In-game achievements, trophies, popups etc

[poetic obsidian]

One modern trend in gaming I'm not particularly fond of is achievements, trophy hunting etc. popping up as I'm playing a game.

 

"Congratulations, you've earned the 'Button Presser' achievement for succesfully using the W-A-S-D keys to navigate !"

 

or suddenly a popup comes on screen and says " 1/ 15 Big toes collected ! "

 

I understand some people need this to keep them motivate to play a game or to add "replay value" Personally I find them distracting or immersion breaking. What will there presence be like in Project Eternity ?

Edited March 15, 2013 by poetic obsidian

[Martius]

I think achievements on steam version should be enough.

[BaronVonChateau]

Anything that pops during play because you've awesomely slain whatthousandth enemy, or because you have simply reached a milestone during your play is absolutely horrible. I'm not that much an immersion fan, but this kind of pop-up makes me feel insulted. It's just as if I was reading a book in the subway, reading a particularly well-done characterization or development, only to get interrupted by a random stranger giving me a lollipop because I just finished the 100th page.

 

Even a non-invasive page at the end of the book which'd describe all my achievements while reading (REACHED 50th PAGE ! READ 30 PAGES IN A SINGLE SITTING !) makes me feel infantilized.

 

No thanks, playing a good game is its own rewards.

 

This said, there are games who does this Achievement thing very well (like Amorphous+ : a free flash game where achievements are used as a kind of currency to buy upgrades). Achievements doesn't just not work well games with a story, or ambiance. If they aren't a piece of the gameplay, they are useless.

[BruceVC]

One modern trend in gaming I'm not particularly fond of is achievements, trophy hunting etc. popping up as I'm playing a game.

 

"Congratulations, you've earned the 'Button Presser' achievement for succesfully using the W-A-S-D keys to navigate !"

 

or suddenly a popup comes on screen and says " 1/ 15 Big toes collected ! "

 

I understand some people need this to keep them motivate to play a game or to add "replay value" Personally I find them distracting or immersion breaking. What will there presence be like in Project Eternity ?

 

I am not particularly fond of achievements either, I find them pointless and vacuous. So hopefully they don't implement them

[PrimeJunta]

I think achievements are more interesting for game devs, actually, since they work as telemetry about how players actually behave (as opposed to how they think they behave). This can be useful. It can also be turned into a mill that grinds everything down to the lowest common denominator.

 

There's no reason these milestones need to be visible to the player though. Personally I dislike them.

[BruceVC]

Anything that pops during play because you've awesomely slain whatthousandth enemy, or because you have simply reached a milestone during your play is absolutely horrible. I'm not that much an immersion fan, but this kind of pop-up makes me feel insulted. It's just as if I was reading a book in the subway, reading a particularly well-done characterization or development, only to get interrupted by a random stranger giving me a lollipop because I just finished the 100th page.

 

Even a non-invasive page at the end of the book which'd describe all my achievements while reading (REACHED 50th PAGE ! READ 30 PAGES IN A SINGLE SITTING !) makes me feel infantilized.

 

No thanks, playing a good game is its own rewards.

 

This said, there are games who does this Achievement thing very well (like Amorphous+ : a free flash game where achievements are used as a kind of currency to buy upgrades). Achievements doesn't just not work well games with a story, or ambiance. If they aren't a piece of the gameplay, they are useless.

 

  "giving me a lollipop because I just finished the 100th page"

 

The  way you made your point cracked me up

[Sacred_Path]

Everything that really is an achievement, you're usually aware of. Winning a tough combat encounter/ sneaking through an entire area undetected/ playing with no reloads for the last 3 hours/ Finding all the pieces to an awsum item are, or can be, real achievements.

[SqueakyCat]

As I said in a previous thread on the subject, if the game content alone isn't imaginative enough to inspire me to replay, then no amount of 'achievements' will either.

 

As far as I know, Obsidian hasn't commented on achievements in the game.

[Cryticus]

Personaly I find achivemnt to be barley working, and complitly non interesting when it comes, to anything other then consols, so pop ups, trophy, and achivements? No , I find them pretty pointless. However if they were in someway integrated in to game, for example as historical feats from NwN 2 then why not.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Cryticus

[rjshae]

I really don't care about "achievements" in and of themselves; finishing the game is the only achievement that matters. But it might be okay to have some combination of in-game trophies for your house/stronghold plus a few highly-focused benefits.

[JFSOCC]

the only game where I care for achievements is team fortress 2

[LadyCrimson]

I don't mind achievements/trophies existing, but I care nothing about them. I definitely don't need/want pop-ups in-game to tell me I've somehow completed one (usually I have no clue what/how/why it was completed, I just get this obscure msg saying I've done so ). The ability to turn them off completely is appreciated.

[Ieo]

As I said in a previous thread on the subject, if the game content alone isn't imaginative enough to inspire me to replay, then no amount of 'achievements' will either.

 

As far as I know, Obsidian hasn't commented on achievements in the game.

 

From the official FAQ:

How will I get my digital copy of the game?

 

We're busy developing our fulfillment site, where you'll be able to specify how you would like to get the game, as well as provide us with any other details depending on your tier (for example, T-shirt size, or name in the credits, etc.) We support both GOG and Steam for distribution, so if you prefer DRM-free, you can choose the GOG option, and if you prefer achievements, multi-platform play (via Steam Play) and cloud saving capabilities, you'll be able to choose Steam.

 

So that's the entire purpose of the Steam version, really.

 

As for me--the less meta-gaming there is, the better. No codex popups, no achievement flags, etc.

 

Edit to clarify: So long as those meta-gaming "extras" are limited to the Steam version only and neither the disc nor GOG versions, I'll be perfectly happy.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Ieo

[poetic obsidian]

^Indeed, that's my main concern. If they implement achievements (and it seems that they would in the Steam version), I hope they give us the option to disable them completely. Or make them non-intrusive for players who choose to ignore them.

 

A recent example that did this wrong is the new Tomb Raider. Even if you ignore the trophy hunting, there are intrusive popups everywhere. I keep accidentally collecting trophies I didn't intend to just by playing the game and interacting with the world.

[Lephys]

What if achievements and trophies were worked into the actual game? You know... after you kill 100 Thingamajiggers, you actually happen to find a rare, Albino Thingamajigger (or one with a huge fang), and you loot something trophy-like off of it (or... you can, if you so choose. Maybe it's indicated that it's a trophy? *shrug*), and you can then display this at your stronghold somewhere.

 

And, maybe achievements could be worked into the reputation system. You know, you pickpocket 1,000 gold, total, off of people, and some Thievish faction recognizes your character's actual achievement, in the game world.

 

A little more care than usual would probably have to be taken with the achievements, so that every little thing you could possibly do wouldn't be one. And I'm fully behind the "no silly make-you-feel-like-a-trooper popups" thing. Achievements should be things you know you did. Some of them could even be listed as challenges from various factions. Perhaps once you've gotten in with them well enough.

 

I mean, if you manage to sneak through an entire dungeon (actual dungeon) to rescue someone without letting a single guard call out, word of that would probably get out. From a gameplay standpoint, that's an achievement-esque challenge, and from a lore/story standpoint, that's quite a feat. Why shouldn't they simply be one in the same? You didn't HAVE to do it. You could've just run through slaughtering folk, or at least taken a little less care and attracted attention once or twice on your way through. But you didn't. Maybe the Thieves' faction respects you more for it. Maybe someone in your party is happy you didn't have to kill all the guards who were just doing their jobs (maybe it was some conspiracy going on, and they didn't know the person above them was holding a particular person prisoner for nefarious reasons, *shrug*), etc.

 

I don't see why they need to be a separate, outside-the-game-world thing that pops up on your screen and simply gets tracked by Steam and stat boards.

[Leferd]

Achievements? Don't like.

[AW8]

I understand some people need this to keep them motivate to play a game or to add "replay value"

Which raises the question to why such a person is playing this game in the first place.

 

I'm all for achievements if:

• There are no pop-ups and they're only tracked on some stats page
• Theres no more than 10 of them
• They are actual achievements, like "Beat the game without killing a thing" and not for ridiculous stuff like beating the tutorial mission ( ) or completing the game

Since I have never seen achievements done like I described, and since I most likely never will, I voted no. Edited March 17, 2013 by AW8

[DreamingVoid]

I absolutely despise achievements which sole purpose is to applaud the player for picking a lock or opening a door, and other such nonsense, and I wholeheartedly believe they are a waste of developer time.

 

That being said I acknowledge the fact that there are games out there that get achievements right, but I do not believe there's a place for them in PE. And I'm actually quite concerned to see that the Steam version will feature achievements but the GOG version won't. Which probably means the Steam version will get a bunch of junk achievements.

[Atreides]

Starcraft2 uses achievements that that challenge players to do interesting things or try to play better.

[Sensuki]

And even still they are not very creative or challenging.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Sensuki

[Lephys]

I just watched my roommate play the new Sim City a bit. It made me thing, "There's a perfect example of a game in which achievements seem to fit right in."

 

The game is sort of already about "See what kind of stuff you can do." So, rewarding you for creatively doing all kinds of stuff makes sense.

 

The only other kind I don't mind are the Xbox Live ones that you get at certain milestones through a game, as those kind of tell other people viewing your profile how far through that game you got. Of course, the points quantities don't always make sense (some games have like 85% of the achievement points, out of 1,000, in multiplayer, even when the game isn't a multiplayer-centric game). But, *shrug*

[Oerwinde]

What if achievements and trophies were worked into the actual game? You know... after you kill 100 Thingamajiggers, you actually happen to find a rare, Albino Thingamajigger (or one with a huge fang), and you loot something trophy-like off of it (or... you can, if you so choose. Maybe it's indicated that it's a trophy? *shrug*), and you can then display this at your stronghold somewhere.

 

And, maybe achievements could be worked into the reputation system. You know, you pickpocket 1,000 gold, total, off of people, and some Thievish faction recognizes your character's actual achievement, in the game world.

 

A little more care than usual would probably have to be taken with the achievements, so that every little thing you could possibly do wouldn't be one. And I'm fully behind the "no silly make-you-feel-like-a-trooper popups" thing. Achievements should be things you know you did. Some of them could even be listed as challenges from various factions. Perhaps once you've gotten in with them well enough.

 

I mean, if you manage to sneak through an entire dungeon (actual dungeon) to rescue someone without letting a single guard call out, word of that would probably get out. From a gameplay standpoint, that's an achievement-esque challenge, and from a lore/story standpoint, that's quite a feat. Why shouldn't they simply be one in the same? You didn't HAVE to do it. You could've just run through slaughtering folk, or at least taken a little less care and attracted attention once or twice on your way through. But you didn't. Maybe the Thieves' faction respects you more for it. Maybe someone in your party is happy you didn't have to kill all the guards who were just doing their jobs (maybe it was some conspiracy going on, and they didn't know the person above them was holding a particular person prisoner for nefarious reasons, *shrug*), etc.

 

I don't see why they need to be a separate, outside-the-game-world thing that pops up on your screen and simply gets tracked by Steam and stat boards.

 

This. Achievements actually having in-game benefits are something I'm a fan of. Bioware did that in the first Mass Effect game, I don't know if they did elsewhere. For example, getting the achievement for kills with the assault rifle unlocked the assault rifle for other classes. I thought that was genius.

 

Otherwise I don't give a crap. I don't mind achievements on Xbox because of Gamerscore. Its something I can compare with my friends, achievements add to my gamerscore. When Bioware had them for the PC version of Dragon Age, I didn't give a crap because it didn't do anything. Steam achievements are even more useless because they're buried so you can't even really see them.

[Tagaziel]

Starcraft2 uses achievements that that challenge players to do interesting things or try to play better.

 

Exactly.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I think achievements are more interesting for game devs, actually, since they work as telemetry about how players actually behave (as opposed to how they think they behave). This can be useful. It can also be turned into a mill that grinds everything down to the lowest common denominator.

 

There's no reason these milestones need to be visible to the player though. Personally I dislike them.

I don't know, achievements are skewed by the simple fact that they're transparent, so they influence the player behavior. A better way to check the player's behavior would be opt-in telemetry, a-là BioWare later titles, possibly without, y'know, turning it on by default.

[Jarmo]

I actually kind of like achievements in many games, particularly if they're not completely moronic. (plenty of examples of achievements done bad mentioned already)

 

I'd like them best if they had actual in game meaning as well, instead of just being patting in the back.

(Which i don't mind either, as long as it's not completely condescending praise for a five year old "travelled 300m all by himself".)

 

New Vegas had a mix of good and bad. Good with in game meaning such like whatever you got after killing a bunch of geckos,

and afterwards you had a slight damage bonus against geckos because you'd had plenty of practice. Things like that.

 

 

Now maybe if you'd kill 50 bandits, it's customary to get something like "bandit slayer" achievement.

But if the rumor got around in game, folks would recognize you as bandit slayer, bandits would recognize you, that'd be a whole other thing.