Achievements are the Best/Worst thing to Happen to Gaming

[Cortheya]

I like them.
Just hooked up my PS3 to the net, and started collecting trophies.
It's kinda fun, especially in Wolfenstein 3D!
But the system in WoW is far better imo.

This...You can actually get rewarded for them, black war bear etc.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

Achievements created the horrible whoring servers in abundance on TF2, and for that reason, despite what they may do for devs' market research, I give them the thumbs down.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Achievements are fine but I hate multiplayer ones especially if no one plays the game online and scavenger achievements can be bad if they are overly excessive hunts like the ones in Assassin's Creed.

ME ones are grand except the ally ones are bad because doing all those side quest gets a tad boring for me and i got 1,000 game score on N3.

 

[I Stomp on Kittens]

I think they are good they show you some editions to the game that you might not have seen and if you get bored you can always take some time to find all those damn collectibles for a nice refreshing sound.

 

[NeutralMunchHotel]

Achievements are fine but I hate multiplayer ones especially if no one plays the game online and scavenger achievements can be bad if they are overly excessive hunts like the ones in Assassin's Creed.

ME ones are grand except the ally ones are bad because doing all those side quest gets a tad boring for me and i got 1,000 game score on N3.

I like scavenger achievements, it when there's no indication as to where they are like Assassin's Creed where it becomes stupid.

 

[Firebert]

Achievements are great in my opinion. They really show that you played the game.

 

[NeutralMunchHotel]

While I enjoy the satisfying "Achievement Unlocked" popping up on the screen, I've made a choice not to become an "Achievement Whore". I'd never play Avatar:TBE or King Kong just for the easy shit achievements. For the games I do have, I try and get the maximum gamerscore for that game, but if it is a ridiculously time consuming or frustrating achievement, I'll just skip it. No worries.

OP, I thought Lego Indy (and Star Wars) were both great "Achievement Games" it made me want to complete the games even more, just to get 100%. I have 980 out of 1000, couldn't get the "Blow 'Em Up" achievement and sold the game after trying to get it a couple of times. 1000/1000 isn't THAT important.

AARGH. I couldn't do that. A) Selling games if for chumps (that's right, I said chumps) and B) Knowing I came so close but just left it would be horrible.

 

[cowbell40]

The concept itself is a good idea; the gamers get extra replay on games that would get boring pretty quickly, and the developers really don't need to put too much effort into making them. However, there are several common pitfalls that developers fall into when making achievements.

1) Pointless/"no effort" achievements: Achievements that you get for simply turning the game on or doing something that requires no skill SHOULD NOT be included in the game. They're called ACHIEVEMENTS because they should require some skill to do. This should also include achievements for passing the training mission.

2) Achievements you can cheat at: Nothing infuriates me quite like hearing some kid in Halo 3 try to cheat at getting the many online achievements. Offline achievements can sometimes be exploited too.

3) Spoiler Alert!: Getting achievements after completing a mission or chapter is ok, but developers need to make sure they pop up AFTER the next chapter has loaded. Nothing quite spoils the ending like finding out you've beaten the game (due to an achievement popping up) before you actually see the conclusion.

4) "High Volume" achievements: Ones like Seriously and Seriously 2.0 in the Gears of War series simply require a VAST amount of kills. Although this proves you've played the game a long time, in reality even the worst player would eventually get this achievement. Achievements that only prove that you've played the game for a long time usually aren't a good idea (Although it can be pulled off; see Rock Band 2's Bladder of Steel Achievement ). Getting all the flags in Assassin's Creed would take FOREVER without cheating.

5) Impossible Achievements: I'm talking to you, GRAW. There's probably like 20 total people who made it to the top of the online leaderboards.

6) Stacking Achievements: This mostly pertains to GH3, but can apply to any other game with the same system. If you insist of giving achievements for completing each difficulty (easy, medium, hard and expert all have their own achievements; honestly, I don't think you should get an achievement for beating Easy - something my 5 year old cousin could do), at least make it so that players like me who start at expert get all the completion achievements for beating the game. I am in no way motivated to go back and beat all the songs/levels in a game on an easier difficulty than I just did. If you beat it on Expert, why should you have to prove that you can do it on Easy?!

 

[NeutralMunchHotel]

AARGH. I couldn't do that. A) Selling games is for chumps (that's right, I said chumps) and B) Knowing I came so close but just left it would be horrible.

A. Keeping games you don't play is for morons. B. Why? How does it matter, really?

A) Did I ever say keeping game I didn't play? Either way, swapping games with friends if better. B) It doesn't, that's exactly it. Yet people still collect achievements.

 

[USSR]

Some achievements are also important to the future development of games. You may not realise that, but those 10 or 20 gamer points you're getting from an unlocked achievement are hugely important.

Hoooow?

The achievements you get from beating a level. All unlocked achievements are documented on Xbox Live. Developers can then access these statistics to see which achievements are being unlocked, by the amount of people who've played their games.

This will allow developers to find out how many players have actually beaten a game, how many players have unlocked most of the content and so on.

With the level beaten achievements developers can then gauge just how hard their game is. Is the game too hard to the point that most of the players haven't beaten it? Check the statistics from Xbox Live.

These things then shape the development of future games, such as difficulty.

Note the fact Assassins Creed may not ask us to find those horrid flags again...

*cries from the memories*

 

[USSR]

Some achievements are also important to the future development of games. You may not realise that, but those 10 or 20 gamer points you're getting from an unlocked achievement are hugely important.

Hoooow?

The achievements you get from beating a level. All unlocked achievements are documented on Xbox Live. Developers can then access these statistics to see which achievements are being unlocked, by the amount of people who've played their games.

This will allow developers to find out how many players have actually beaten a game, how many players have unlocked most of the content and so on.

With the level beaten achievements developers can then gauge just how hard their game is. Is the game too hard to the point that most of the players haven't beaten it? Check the statistics from Xbox Live.

These things then shape the development of future games, such as difficulty.

Note the fact Assassins Creed may not ask us to find those horrid flags again...

*cries from the memories*

From what I read I don't think that the developers are going into that same direction again.

Then again, I could be wrong.

..I hope you are right T.T

 

[USSR]

Some achievements are also important to the future development of games. You may not realise that, but those 10 or 20 gamer points you're getting from an unlocked achievement are hugely important.

Hoooow?

The achievements you get from beating a level. All unlocked achievements are documented on Xbox Live. Developers can then access these statistics to see which achievements are being unlocked, by the amount of people who've played their games.

This will allow developers to find out how many players have actually beaten a game, how many players have unlocked most of the content and so on.

With the level beaten achievements developers can then gauge just how hard their game is. Is the game too hard to the point that most of the players haven't beaten it? Check the statistics from Xbox Live.

These things then shape the development of future games, such as difficulty.

Note the fact Assassins Creed may not ask us to find those horrid flags again...

*cries from the memories*

From what I read I don't think that the developers are going into that same direction again.

Then again, I could be wrong.

..I hope you are right T.T

I highly recommend reading up on the Games(tm) magazines, they are excellent sources of information.

Or, if you're broke, you can get that same article that goes into depth about the game here: http://www.nowgamer.com/features/298/assassins-creed-2

It's good read, and I trust the source.

Thanks, I had a subscription on game informer but that ended a few months, and I keep forgetting to renew it =/

 

[thatstheguy]

I like that they give replay value and some are fun to do. Like the achievements from have life 2.