Comments on: The strange and misleading art of achievement-o-mancy http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-strange-and-misleading-art-of-achievement-o-mancy/ MMOs and game design Tue, 21 May 2013 14:36:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: arbitrary http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-strange-and-misleading-art-of-achievement-o-mancy/#comment-11333 Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:57:10 +0000 https://spinksville.wordpress.com/?p=4583#comment-11333 I don’t love the WoW achievements, but don’t mind LotrO deeds. I think perhaps it’s the fun titles and big splash across the screen with the WoW ones that puts me off. However, I do sometimes think ‘oh, I did something cool, nice’ when one does pop up. And I do want the skunk for collecting pets – but so far that’s the only one WoW has made me want… the rest I just treat as extras for playing as I’m going to play anyway.

But – I wish I could stop them popping up on my screen and broadcasting to other players. Sometimes I don’t want everyone to know what I’m up to!

]]> By: Stabs http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-strange-and-misleading-art-of-achievement-o-mancy/#comment-11332 Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:39:58 +0000 https://spinksville.wordpress.com/?p=4583#comment-11332 I’m a Luddite regarding achievements. I think they have been used as a blind to cover the removal of real achievement in the game.

We’ve gone from only the finest guilds in the world could clear Naxx 40 to everyone has the Lich King on farm. But not to worry, have an “I did it first” if you are top guild on your server.

I’m afraid I see achievements as pure social engineering, manipulative psychology, and when I get one in WoW my thought isn’t usually “cool, how impressive!” but a shattering of immersion.

I am (unfairly) perfectly happy to get achievements in other games because I don’t have the same sense of there used to be something even better than 10 achievement points – knowing and having everyone else know you were a good player.

]]> By: Syl http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-strange-and-misleading-art-of-achievement-o-mancy/#comment-11331 Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:40:57 +0000 https://spinksville.wordpress.com/?p=4583#comment-11331 I have to agree. Achievements should be seen as an ‘extra’ to playing the game, not as a main goal. I’ve always seen them as a timesink or contentfiller and most of them certainly do not tell you much about the player. If they start to influence the game in such a way that players can’t join raids anymore without an achievement, I really question the use of them – same goes for the potential pressure on guilds in Cata. the game feels more and more like a ‘job application’ – a bit like Shintar wrote in a recent article or your own post about the cookie cutter mania. =/
I wonder where we are going at this rate.

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