FeedAchievement Culture.
by NovaSyx on Jan.04, 2009, under Consoles, Developers, Opinions, PC, Rant
I borrowed a friends Xbox 360 for a weekend, because he suggested I play Fable II. Fair enough, it had interested me. But this isn’t a Fable II review. This is what I discovered on my short journey through the world of the Xbox Live community.
All I had attempted to do, was play some Fable II co-op. I just wanted to go and slay some guards with my fellow heroes of Albion, simple I presumed. Not quite the case. Every time I managed to find a slaying partner, all they were concerned about doing was banging out some more achievements, and they come from the most trivial tasks. I wasn’t interested in killing 5 enemies at once with one magic spell, I wasn’t interested at farting at the same time as him, and I definitely wasn’t interested in the 101 meaningless other bollocks tasks he and the next 6 people I played with proposed that we do for that stupid little popup at the bottom of the screen.
You see, there are 2 main flaws with the achievement system.
- The achievements themselves are often shite. They should be rewarded to the player for significant milestones within a game, earning a certain amount of money, buying a certain amount of things. A few of them should remain fun but should be able to be found by ACCIDENT and should also remain secret until they have been completed.
- The reward for achievements is an arbitrary number. If anyone has played Team Fortress 2 on the PC, Valve have nailed it. For those of you that haven’t, Valve periodically releases ‘packs’ of achievements. Every 1/3rd of them you do, you obtain a new unlock for that class. No stupid ridiculous achievements either, all of them can be earned through time just playing normally with a modicum of skill. As a result I believe the best way to make an achievement useful is to actually reward the player with something of relevance to the game. I don’t want 10 useless gamerpoints. Can I convert them into MS points? Can I turn them into pizza? Can I even turn them into a new armour set? Then why the fuck am I doing this bollocks?!
And as a result, the player base of each game becomes focused on these bloody achievements to up their gamerscore. I even had one player make the case to me about avatar clothing being unlocked with gamerscore. Seriously MS, you can do better than that.
Just a few changes into the achievement system would make the gaming experience better for everyone on the whole, because if I run into one more guy online ever that refuses to play the game for fun rather than to make his e-penis larger, I’m going to jump through the screen and end him.
January 5th, 2009 on 8:56 pm
You say “refuses to play the game for fun”, that really pisses me off. You’re not the judge of whats fun and whats not, fun is subjective. If they want to play a game solely for the achievements like its some ghetto MMO then thats their choice.
If someone wants to play a game all seriously and go to tournaments and stuff then thats their choice too.
Instead of telling people how to have fun you should instead maybe look up a forum or something for people that enjoy the same things as you.
If there is one thing I’ve found self-labeled “hardcore” and “casual” gamers have in common is that they apparently have monopoly on fun.
But I agree that the achievement system is flawed.
Cheers
January 5th, 2009 on 9:26 pm
fun, noun, something that provides mirth or amusement.
From what I gathered, they didn’t find it fun either (I asked a couple why they do this crap) but they wanted more gamerscore. When I asked why they wanted more gamerscore I either got ‘Because my friends got more than me’ or ‘Because I do’.
By that point I would disconnect.
January 6th, 2009 on 3:43 pm
I agree and disagree respectively.
Take Gears of War 2 for example, it has a lot of achievements but most of them are very fun to do, especially on co-op with a friend. They kept me entertained for a long time, trying to complete them, also they are relevant to the game.
But this is not a Gears 2 review, no.
What I am trying to say is that while certain achievements are better left 4 dead (haha game joke), some are fun and add replay value to the game, especially ones like “beat this game on this level setting”.
Also I do not think that achievements should unlock anything GAME CONTENT related because it would overpower people who have no life and play games every waking minute, and normal people who like to relax occasionally with a game will be screwed over in multi-player because people are jacked up on unlockables from achievements.