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More Achievement Stupidity
If you needed more evidence showing how achievements are not so good, look no more.
Comments
I guess I'm just bothered by the fact that we have people spending lots of time doing effectively nothing in order to earn artificial rewards. It's like I see all these people lining up to sit in skinner boxes as if it's the greatest thing ever. However, the skinner boxes they are going to only offer fake food. At least go to a skinner box with real food and get fed!
The reason why achievements add something extra to a game is that they allow players to challenge themselves within a gamespace and to recieve some sort of reward for spending time to complete it. I'm positive that at some point in your life you did something crazy in a video game that you had to share to one of your friends, be it the first time you beat Mario 3 or when you found Minus World. Getting the achievement points allow you to show your friends that you have completed some challange and show them that your vidjagame cock is bigger than theirs. People like to compete with other people and the feeling of being rewarded for a seemingly difficult task is generaly a very pleasant one. It's easy to see why people view achievements in a way that they think it adds something to the game, often it adds that excited feeling of completion that you get from completing any other sort of task.
There are many rewarding things in video games from which people can derive enjoyment. For me, a reward of numbers changing in a database does not produce enjoyment. For some people, numbers changing in a database does seem to provide some level of entertainment. Pushing a button to make a number go up != rewarding. There needs to be some challenge, some skill, some artistic revelation of some sort. If there is an enjoyable reward in addition to the achievement, such as beating an advanced level in Portal, then why have the achievement if it isn't necessary?
I have to hand it to the guy, he found a way to "get back" at all those punk kids who kick his ass in the game. He also earned an achievement!
This isn't too new. I used to do it back in the days of the first Halo whenever I got sick of playing normally. I would just chase down my friends while throwing "stickies" at them or try to run them over with whatever vehicle was on hand disregarding the risk of getting shot while doing so.
That being said, it's still awesome, and I'm glad that he got an achievement out of it. Whether or not achievements detract from your own play, you can tell that someone with a sense of humor put care into a couple of them.
Not new.
GG.
No one said there wasn't. Achievements merely add to the experience. Beating a harder song on DDR gives you exercise, and satisfaction that you have increased your coordination and skills.
Harder guitar hero songs are satisfying in that way too, but it's also satisfying being rewarded for big combos, nice streaks etc. Playing any multiplayer game of skill allows you to test your skills against those of other humans, and winning gives the reward of conquering your opponents.
Again, I still think that being recognized for something is great. To use Halo again since it's recent, if you get 10 consecutive kills you're rewarded on top of your satisfaction. Five sticky kills in a single game is rewarded with more points. Also to use Halo again, unlocking more achievements unlocks more armor permutations for your characters.
then why have the achievement if it isn't necessary?I think being recognized is more rewarding than just doing it and thinking "Yeah! I did it!"
Now I've got a badge to signify I did it. It adds some sort of level of competition to friends, I've found. My buddies just got their 360's and thought achievements were dumb until they realized they could try and have fun with it. They're not necessary at all. My top 10 favorite games probably don't include a single 360 game, and I don't feel like "Damn, these would be better with achievements!"
If they had them, cool, but I don't need Metal Gear Solid, or Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath to have them to enjoy them fully.
Speaking as someone who has recently played both WoW and FF12, I can say that I'm personally done with FMVs and other scripted sequences as a "reward". The game itself should be good. I didn't play Half-Life 2 so I could see a guy in a suit say cryptic things; I did it so I could shoot aliens and augmented soldiers with a shotgun. FF12's gameplay was actually fun, until about halfway through when I broke through the difficulty curve, maxed out my abilities, and succeeded in turning every character into exactly the same character. If you're at all familiar with the game, you'll understand when I tell you I did not take any unusual actions to get to that point; it's just the way the game is.
By your logic, Xenosaga is an outstanding game series because it contains enormous amounts of FMVs. In fact, I found the games intolerable to play; they were actually more fun to just watch. But any game like that ought to just be an anime.
If I beat an RPG (or any game with extended scripted sequences, like, say, Metal Gear Solid), and I get the "cool ending", who cares? I do, perhaps, but, as I've implied, I would much rather just go watch Heroes or Battlestar Galactica if I want to watch interesting plots about interesting characters. All I've succeeded in doing is what anyone else could do, and many have.
If, in WoW, I slave for 6 months in the arena to get a full suit of Gladiator gear, not only does it make my "numbers" go up, not only does it make me look bad-ass (if you're into that sort of thing), but, most importantly, I have achieved a permanent and meaningful achievement that anyone in the game would recognize. They know, for a fact, that I used no cheat-code, no hack, no savegame, and no walk-through to get the reward. I'm not saying they'll kiss my feet, but their knowledge validates my satisfaction at achieving it.
Not that I ever did, of course. Because it's hard. Very hard. Not "save and reload repeatedly" hard. Not "buy the strategy guide" hard. Not even "keep playing until you master it" hard. It's so hard, you have to already be excellent, and well-practiced, and you have to work hard, and you have to have an excellent team that meets all the criteria. And, for god's sake, you'd better be having fun doing it, because otherwise you won't last.
This "numbers" shtick of yours is stale, short-sighted, and foolish. I've disproven it a hundred times, I'll do it again on command. It's a ridiculous argument from someone who enjoys such games as Pokemon, which are, by their very nature, exactly the same as WoW: numbers games.
All you are really trying to do is justify your irrational dislike of a style of game you don't prefer. You would have the same opinion, but far less fervor, if it weren't so damn popular. Because it is, you try harder to justify it. But though your highly intelligent mind can come up with a logical explanation of your feelings, that doesn't mean your explanation is correct, or that your logic is absolute. It means you have a feeling, an emotion, and you justify it, like everyone else in the world. The logical finesse with which you do, and your willingness to state your arguments, is what makes you so entertaining on this show, and in real life.
But the "numbers" argument is completely wrong. You don't like MMOs. Big deal. I don't like platformers, and I haven't enjoyed a Mario or Zelda game since the NES, I shit you not. I never play my own DS, I don't own a Wii, and I own maybe 2 Gamecube games. Do I come up with reasons why you shouldn't like Nintendo? No. I've thought them. I've formulated the logical arguments. But then I recognized that those arguments were wrong. I can't disprove your preference for games that I do not prefer; you prefer them, and there is no logical argument that can change that.
For the record, the moment I listened to your show, where you two actually played and truly experienced Burning Wheel, I resolved to try it myself, and have since begun a Burning Wheel game. I respect people who put their money where their mouth is. Until you know anything about WoW, or just drop your unfounded arguments, I will disregard them, and I think everyone else should do the same.
It was an example. Apreche didn't say "the more the better". I think he's referring more to Zelda/FFVI etc where a conclusive cutscene is what you get for reward.
After reading your post, I've deduced that this is all out of your passion for WoW... Yawn.
In any case, Scott's post above does not lessen the value of the achievements in a game in any bit and I have to agree with xenomouse that this is actually a pretty nice display of puzzle solving skills. I personally dislike people trying to make an argument of being better at games because they have a higher gamerscore. In the end it's just an arbitrary number and I think the system would be better if it wouldn't reward points at all, but there is nothing inherently flawed with achievements, just with people arguing about their penis size... um I mean gamerscore.
I have a PS3 and 360. Unless the PS3 version has more content or the 360 version is broken (Tiger Woods 08!) I will never buy the PS3 version over the 360 disc. No reason when I can get the same game with achievements. Of course it's an arbitrary number, and yeah, it's totally bullshit-useless. It's still FUN, though.
I own two consoles, a Wii and an XBox 360. Let's say 2K Games would have brought out Bioshock for the Wii with a similar control scheme to Metroid Prime 3. I would have bought it on the Wii instead of the 360 if the only difference was the control scheme in favor of the Wii and achievements in favor of the 360.
I enjoy completing ridiculously challenging obstacles in games. In Metal Gear Solid 3 (when skipping every bit of story) I tried to beat the whole game without being seen or killing anyone. That was a very fun (though upsetting and aggravating) few weeks of constantly reloading the game. I did this with my roommates and we really got into it by planning out ways around each area of guards, yelling and screaming, and I guess bonding as a tighter group of friends though the experience.
When we all finally got to the end, watching the last cut scene, reminiscing over the week of hardships was great.
Now I don't go on to forums and brag how I am super awesome. (And I am super awesome) But I found it to give a great high to play the game in an odd way.
Now I understand that's not an X-box live achievement... but it is an achievement none the less. I got the optic camo even though I never really wanted it in the first place. All I wanted was the memories and experience of a group of friends coming together to do something ridiculous in a game.
I play games for enjoyment, and if achievements give me some more enjoyment out of the game by giving me an opportunity to play a game again in some odd and more challenging way, whats wrong with that?
Though many people do need help building identities... and this may help them feel good about themselves. (This probably creates more social problems then it helps now that I think about it.)
My mind sidetracks a lot... sorry.
Or, for example, getting an achievement and recognition for accomplishing some difficult task in a game.
I disagree with Scott entirely regarding achievements, and I think his views are silly. There's nothing wrong with achievements aside from the fact that they're a fairly inelegant way of introducing rewards into a game.
It's a ridiculous argument from someone who enjoys such games as Pokemon, which are, by their very nature, exactly the same as WoW: numbers games.
I think the difference is that he stopped playing Pokemon some time ago, while you're still playing WoW. ^_~
At GameFaqs I once stumbled across a FAQ on Half-Life 2 that described how to beat the game using only the gravity gun from the point you acquire it (except for sections that need another gun such as taking down Striders or Gunships with the rocket launcher). While even before I read it and I was playing through Ravenholm thinking to myself that this could be possible to beat using only the grav gun, I wasn't really going to do it because no one would believe me if they even cared.
Now there is the Orange Box that has that very accomplishment as an achievement. And Valve gives you another such objective of beating Episode 1 only using a single bullet (to open a lock) and have to move through the rest of the game with the gravity gun, the crowbar, rocket launcher and grenades. I have done both and while it was rather difficult, it was very entertaining. Even though many people will not really care, at least I got a little reward for it and permanent proof that I have done it.
A rather bad example would be the new TMNT game, whose achievements can entirely be picked up on the first time through, although the game has a time trial mode and some additional challenge maps, a common practice to artificially lengthen the gameplay of a game, but no achievements bound to them.
Achievements are nice, even if they only convey a joke, such as pressing start in the new Simpsons game, or as the Comic Book Guy would say: "Easiest achievment ever."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
My only complaint is that sometimes the achievements are uninspired or could have been handled in a less lazy, direct way.
This thread did get me thinking about analogous systems that were around when I was a kid. For many of the Activision games on the Atari 2600, if you could get some high score, and snapped a photo of the screen, you could mail it in and get a patch back in the mail that you could put on your jacket or whatever (here is a photo showing some of them).
I remember the manuals for some of my Activision Atari games had instructions for taking a high quality picture of the TV with a Polaroid camera (close the drapes, longer exposure time, a few other things). The whole process probably took "four to six weeks", that time frame familiar to any kid who read the offers on cereal boxes and comic books.
I don't remember ever sending away for any of those things, but a few of my colleagues on the playground at Bandelier Elementary school were sporting such patches on their parkas. Maybe still stupid and sad, but we were third graders, and it was 1980, so we probably had an excuse.
As for coming up with interesting new ways to play a game, we've had that without this achievement stuff for quite some time. Take a look at a game like Portal. It has some bonus modes. Try to beat this level with fewest portals, least time, etc. The bonus modes are fine. Having an icon pop up when you beat the bonus mode, is just a pop up. In fact, I see it detracting from the game in some ways. You're playing a game totally immersed in the world of the game, then this pop up bring you out to the meta, the world outside the game.
Listen people. If bragging rights make things so much more fun, why are you playing video games? You can earn so many more braggin rights doing a lot of other things than beating Guitar Hero songs on expert.