Bashiok: Blizzard Achievements in D3

Bashiok replied to a rant about how the just-revealed Blizzard cross-game achievements won’t be any good, since the WoW ones aren’t any good, even though no one outside of Blizzard (including this poster) yet has any idea how they’ll work in SC2 or Diablo3.

Steam achievements are generally based around small, situational, skill, or long-term goals in short “round” or level based FPS’. So obviously achievements in an MMO are going to be vastly different, and can cover a much wider range of goals from small and fun, to long and involved, and yes even to the impossible.

For us completionists we’re going to be frustrated by not being able to have everything. But part of the system is specifically to show off where you’ve been, how long you’ve been playing, and what you’ve accomplished. I’m going to have to deal with the fact that I wasn’t everywhere or did everything at some point in time. I’m going to have to focus on the goals I can achieve instead of those I can’t. There’s no point crying over milk that was spilled two years ago that I just found all dried and crusty under my refrigerator.

That’s World of Warcraft though. It’s a persistent world and moves and evolves and changes with patch to patch, and expansion to expansion. There’s a lot more area for there to be achievements that were attainable at one time, but due to that evolution of the game – are no longer possible.

Diablo III isn’t an MMO, it doesn’t evolve in the same way, and so there’s far less chance for there to be an achievement rendered impossible due to game updates.

He followed that up by doing some more point by point clarifications on how the Achievements will function:

Will the system frustrate most players?

It won’t. Completionists like you and I account for such a small percentage as weirdo OCD-crazed gamers that it really won’t. It may seem like a large group because we entrench ourselves in groups and pockets of like-minded individuals. But really a “normal” person might say “Hey there’s an achievement for going to BlizzCon 2005, I wonder if I can find anyone that has that one…” while you and I may sit in a corner with glazed eyes rocking back and forth and muttering something about murloc codes.

Achievements aren’t good since some of them will take forever to acquire, and that just measures time spent playing.

It’s only cruel if you’re putting that much importance and stock in a tiny colored square in your armory profile.

I’ll quote this one since it’s just so perfectly “b.net forum post” in its attitude: “I choose subsets of things to complete, and I never would try to do everything in wow – it’s just too big. I do however feel that making the game into a bunch of elitist cliques seems horrible wrong.”

Such as the /love a squirrel clique? Come on though, you’re going a bit far. So we can’t even recognize raiding achievements now because it’s an elitist clique? It’s a game, keep it in context.

The next complaint basically boiled down to this: “There shouldn’t be achievements for things I don’t like to do personally.”

Is an achievement found in an out-of-way website really that much more in-your-face elitism than someone wearing full Season 4 and a spectral tiger mount right in front of you in-game?

No, no, it’s just an achievement system, not a weapon. You determine your own level of involvement.

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