Achievements Poll.

[directhex]

Originally Posted by revol68

there was me asking Stewart why he had decided that PC games with achievements weren't relevant and me not getting an answer.

Another issue is the fact it's kind of messed up that Microsoft dictate that all 360 games have achievements, it's a slippery slope when the hardware manufacturer is setting mandatory gameplay elements. Could anyone imagine how jarring and classless an achievements pop up would be in Metal Gear Solid, Half Life 2, Shadow of the Collusus, Deus Ex and the like, y'know games that the developers approach more as works of art like a novel or movie, which aim to create an entirely immersive self contained world?

HL2 DOES have achievements.

and they'll probably be added to MGS4 in the not too distant future, in the form of sony's "trophies"

[revol68]

Originally Posted by directhex

HL2 DOES have achievements.

and they'll probably be added to MGS4 in the not too distant future, in the form of sony's "trophies"

Half Life 2 didn't have achievements on the PC, the version that I played, I think achievements popping up in the middle of the game would look tack and jar with the deep sense of immersion and narrative they are sucking you into, for reasons i've outlined already.

[Geist]

Ctrl Alt Del

I'd just like to point people over to today's comic...

That sums up online achievements.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by revol68

Half Life 2 didn't have achievements on the PC, the version that I played, I think achievements popping up in the middle of the game would look tack and jar with the deep sense of immersion and narrative they are sucking you into, for reasons i've outlined already.

As I've said many times, if you pay the achievements no attention, and don't go out to get them, you'd rarely trigger one. Also each achievement can only trigger once, so if you did happen to accidentally trigger one, you'd have 'achievement unlocked' on the screen for a few seconds and then that achievement would never bother you again.

You might, in the course of a 40 hour game, spend about 20 seconds with a small amount of text at the bottom of the screen.

It wouldn't tack or indeed jar, not to any extent that it would make any difference anyway.

You talk as if the screen would be almost constantly filled with things relating to achievements, this is simply not the case.

Understand the following points:

- Achievements are optional. Don't like them? Don't try to get them.


- If you did happen to get one accidentally, it would take but a few seconds to tell you what had happened, and would never bother you again, so long as you shall live.


- Even that tiny 'discomfort' only really applies in heavily story driven games, in action games achievements are much more suited.



All in all, its not a massive concern really, is it?

[beanbandit]

I hate the achievements, they serve absolutely no purpose apart from forum willy-waving. If they actually had some impact within the game or opened up something then all fine and good, but the majority of them don't. MS need to inject some standards into the system, make them worth hunting out like they do in Halo 3 with the skulls being linked to the Achievement. Try playing without the radar, or one of the other options. As it stands achievements are pointless (pun intended )

[JK Ferret]

The achievements in Halo 3 do add some individuality to your online character, with most of them unlocking various pieces of armour, which you can use to customise your look without giving you any real advantage

I can't say how it affects any other game as yet, having only had time to play H3 since I got my Xbox 360

[revol68]

For the last time Stewart, the fact that I don't have to actively don't have to go after them does not make them optional, not in any true sense of the word.

Secondly, they are in no way optional for 360 game developers and whilst you and plenty of people like achievements it should hardly be right that they are mandatory for ALL games. There is also the fact that achievements and scorepoints strongly change gaming dynamics backwards to crude scoreboard competitiveness, quantifying qualitive game experiences and doing so in a manner that rewards certain types of play over others. Look at people buying crap games to get easy points, look at the dickheads ignoring the multiplayer objectives in favour of unlocking achievements. The other thing is that they effect sales and artificially bolster crap games , which in turn affects the future production of games.

In all it seems to be a step backwards from the grand idea of total immersion, free exploration and subjective user experience in favour of a cheap bare meta game mechanic that plays on a base pavlovian psychology device. Weren't we suppoused to be dragged into games by the depth of their worlds, through intellectual and emotional responses to the characters, plots and subtexts, not because we want to increase a silly number beside our profile that is ultimately meaningless beyond epeen measuring.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by revol68

For the last time Stewart, the fact that I don't have to actively don't have to go after them does not make them optional, not in any true sense of the word.

It does mate, thats what optional means.

Secondly, they are in no way optional for 360 game developers and whilst you and plenty of people like achievements it should hardly be right that they are mandatory for ALL games. There is also the fact that achievements and scorepoints strongly change gaming dynamics backwards to crude scoreboard competitiveness, quantifying qualitive game experiences and doing so in a manner that rewards certain types of play over others. Look at people buying crap games to get easy points, look at the dickheads ignoring the multiplayer objectives in favour of unlocking achievements. The other thing is that they effect sales and artificially bolster crap games , which in turn affects the future production of games.

Achievements are wildly popular with 360 owners, and regardless of what you say, are optional. They only 'change gaming dynamics backwards to crude scoreboard competitiveness' if you decided to invovled yourself with them. If you don't want to lower yourself to this, you are under no obligation to do so.

People playing crap games to get the points is no skin off your nose, or mine. I don't do it because I have some taste, and if someone were scaning the games on my gamercard, they would see they were well chosen, but if someone wants to play King Kong to get 1000 points, or Avatar: The Last Airbender, it doesn't make the achievements system any worse, nor annoy anyone else.

The achievements system will not affect the future production of games, because, as I've explained before, many, many times, they are added afterwards as an additional level of entertainment for those who wish to get them. They don't have any effect on the quality of the core game. If anything, for the vast majority of people, they extended the life of the game, a point Hex rasied earlier.

You've raised all these points before, I've pointed out these counter points before.

In all it seems to be a step backwards from the grand idea of total immersion, free exploration and subjective user experience in favour of a cheap bare meta game mechanic that plays on a base pavlovian psychology device.

No, it all seems to be an aditional level of enjoyment, added on top of the core gaming experience, for those who wish to take part in it, and the reason it seems like that, it because thats what it is.

Weren't we suppoused to be dragged into games by the depth of their worlds, through intellectual and emotional responses to the characters, plots and subtexts?

I've never been dragged into the depths of a Super Mario game, through intellectual and emotional responses to the characters, plots and subtexts. The characters are simplistic, the plot is laughable, and there are no subtexts. Just some jumping and stuff. Its still by far the best, most important, and best selling game series of all time though.

I think you may be thinking about it too much, and using needlessly flowery terms to make the same arguements repeatable ad nauseum.

Alas using long words will not make a weak arguement any stronger. You're a trier though, I'll give you that.

[JK Ferret]

Originally Posted by revol68

For the last time Stewart, the fact that I don't have to actively don't have to go after them does not make them optional, not in any true sense of the word.

Secondly, they are in no way optional for 360 game developers and whilst you and plenty of people like achievements it should hardly be right that they are mandatory for ALL games. There is also the fact that achievements and scorepoints strongly change gaming dynamics backwards to crude scoreboard competitiveness, quantifying qualitive game experiences and doing so in a manner that rewards certain types of play over others. Look at people buying crap games to get easy points, look at the dickheads ignoring the multiplayer objectives in favour of unlocking achievements. The other thing is that they effect sales and artificially bolster crap games , which in turn affects the future production of games.

In all it seems to be a step backwards from the grand idea of total immersion, free exploration and subjective user experience in favour of a cheap bare meta game mechanic that plays on a base pavlovian psychology device. Weren't we suppoused to be dragged into games by the depth of their worlds, through intellectual and emotional responses to the characters, plots and subtexts, not because we want to increase a silly number beside our profile that is ultimately meaningless beyond epeen measuring.

Ok, so I agree with you here on some points, like the people who are just achievement-mad, to the point of abandoning the way the game should be played (like Halo 3 online, people grouping together just to get Overkill or something). And the people who buy a load of crap just so they have loads of points.

Have you noticed that Stewart has said exactly the same thing? Or were you too busy disagreeing with him?

You could always leave negative feedback for that reason, and go and blow the sh!t out of them while they're all standing around like lemons waiting


As for the 'not truly optional', well, if you can ignore a bit of text on the screen for a few seconds, then why does it matter? If you get so deep into a game that you feel you are practically there, then perhaps that would be a good time to take a break, because it can't exactly be all that great (please note, this coming from an all-his-life gamer, who never takes breaks... . I just don't drown myself with the gameplay and forget all else)

[directhex]

Originally Posted by revol68

Half Life 2 didn't have achievements on the PC, the version that I played, I think achievements popping up in the middle of the game would look tack and jar with the deep sense of immersion and narrative they are sucking you into, for reasons i've outlined already.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/directhex/stats/HL2:EP2

[Stewart]

Can I ask Hex, did those achievements unlocking tack and jar with the deep sense of immersion and narrative they you were being sucked into?

[Jay]

I like them but I think some are stupid. Like get through GTA4 in 30 hours, it makes people rush through the game etc.

[JK Ferret]

Originally Posted by Jay

I like them but I think some are stupid. Like get through GTA4 in 30 hours, it makes people rush through the game etc.

You don't have to do it on the first go through. There's no reason why you can't start another game once you've finished all the missions already, so you know what you're doing. All it is, is a challenge to see how much of the game you've taken in. (No I haven't done that, I've done about 15 missions or something like that so far)

[revol68]

Originally Posted by directhex

http://steamcommunity.com/id/directhex/stats/HL2:EP2

So Half Life 2: Episode Two did, not Half Life 2 itself. They are still tacky. The achievements on Mass Effect were fairly unintrusive in their announcement but it did annoy me that they had awards for stuff like Paragon or Renegade, in doing so they were implicitly directing players to play towards one extreme or the other despite the fact they made a big deal of the fact it was meant to be mixed, that players could take a mixture of positions depending on context. I mean why award someone for playing the game in that manner but not the other, especially when you've been waxing lyrical about how your system is much more nuanced that the black and white choices of other games.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by JK Ferret

You don't have to do it on the first go through.

You don't have to do it at all.

[revol68]

Also no one has addressed the really messed up thing about achievements on the xbox 360, namely that they are mandatory. Why should it be forced on all games? What if a developer hates them and thinks they jar against what they are trying to achieve? Should Microsoft be dictating to games designers on such a microlevel? Isn't that a worrying trend?