D3 Achievements

[Krugar]

Re: D3 Achievements

There's plenty of anti-achievement points in this thread and you haven't specifically taken issue with any of them, you've just swept them all aside as "not good enough". That makes you as reputable as someone who has not even read the thread.

Do I really look like I care what you think of me?

When your first post in reply to what I was saying was "Maybe you should read some of the posts in this topic before you try to be the voice of reason", I lost all and any interest in debating with you. You will simply not listen, because you can't even properly read what is being said.

Knight_Wolf already addressed these issues. My words exactly. You don't want me to go any deeper into this. Your reply to him immediately revealed your utter lack of knowledge on how a software is developed and a gaming company plans and delimits a game project.

Going any further will only embarrass you. Are you sure you really want me to do that? Think twice before replying. Contrary to you, I'm not in the business of speaking of things I don't know. I suggest you reevaluate your position, particular on the issue of the complexity of developing an Achievements system. Either you know exactly what you are talking about and allow me to crush your argument to the crap pit where it shouldn't ever have left, or you admit you don't know what you are talking about, and we move on to other more interesting things.

 

[Siyko]

Re: D3 Achievements

snip

What is this? You're threatening to post some content? You still haven't said anything this whole topic. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm specifically trying to convince you of anything - I'm voicing my reasons for disliking achievements, and you're.....

you know, I'm really not sure what you're doing. You're not posting anything about achievements, you're not pointing out any errors in my points, you're not trying to convince anyone of anything. You're just making noise to indicate that you still stand by your original convictions.

Again, fingers in the ears.

 

[SlechtWeerBeer]

Re: D3 Achievements

Why do you guys even bother to respond?

 

[Krugar]

Re: D3 Achievements

What is this? You're threatening to post some content? You still haven't said anything this whole topic. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm specifically trying to convince you of anything - I'm voicing my reasons for disliking achievements, and you're.....

So, do you, or don't you know what you are talking about? I want to hear it from you. You know, I'm sick and tired of armchair game designers and armchair game developers using the most inane arguments about software development which they never touched in their wettest dreams.

If you are going to argue, as you did, using your so-called knowledge on how a game is developed, you better be prepared for the consequences. And my question is, do you know or not what you are talking about? Do you admit you are using arguments for which you in fact have no knowledge of, or do you say you know all there is to know about software development and are ready to have me counter your ridiculous claims?

I won't ask again.

 

[Siyko]

Re: D3 Achievements

So, do you, or don't you know what you are talking about? I want to hear it from you. You know, I'm sick and tired of armchair game designers and armchair game developers using the most inane arguments about software development which they never touched in their wettest dreams.

I work 40 hours a week in the software lifecycle, I do know how it works. I know what it means to add a new module to a complex, living piece of software. I know the resources required for extensive QA'ing and bug scrubbing. This is why I take issue with the 'its no big deal' response to the development resources argument.

If you are going to argue, as you did, using your so-called knowledge on how a game is developed, you better be prepared for the consequences. And my question is, do you know or not what you are talking about? Do you admit you are using arguments for which you in fact have no knowledge of, or do you say you know all there is to know about software development and are ready to have me counter your ridiculous claims?

I won't ask again.

Again, you're threatening to post some content? I think you have a problem with theatrics, this is like your 4th post saying "its coming! im gonna post something! here it comes!"

I also hope you understand that the goal of your upcoming self-heralded post seems to be proving that implementing achievements takes zero development effort. Because of this, I am skeptical of your knowledge on the subject.

 

[Funkopotamus]

Re: D3 Achievements

I'm a fan of arbitrary and mundane quota achievements that do nothing. The arbitrary, because it gives you something to try; Mundane quotas because it's like a personal record that reminds you "Christ, I've been playing this a while."; and nothing because not everybody wants to go for achievements so they probably shouldn't be penalized for that.

 

[Krugar]

Re: D3 Achievements

I work 40 hours a week in the software lifecycle, I do know how it works. I know what it means to add a new module to a complex, living piece of software. I know the resources required for extensive QA'ing and bug scrubbing. This is why I take issue with the 'its no big deal' response to the development resources argument.

Very well, then. You say you know how it works. Well, I do to. I'm a software developer since I was 19. That's 23 years in this business, Siyko. So here it goes:

No big deal? You are basing this off what exactly?
This same (faulty) argument could be used to support absolutely any theoretical feature.

And where exactly do you base your own arguments? Your own logic could be used too to support any theoretical feature. And as such we would end up with a game with only minimal features, because everything else takes time.

On the contrary, an Achievements system with no implications on character development and no other in-game effects is in fact quite easy to develop.

An Achievement System (AS, from now on) is often developed using an Observer Pattern as its basis (you of course know what this is, don't you?). The actual implementation is nothing more than incrementing counters or timers that can run on their own thread, but often are attached to existing game threads. The timers doesn't even need to run continuously. They can run in intervals of time based on certain conditions set by the observer class.

This is the typical weekend project you take home to get finished by Monday. There's no science in it. No outlandish complexity that a team of developers having to design a complete 3D engine from scratch couldn't handle in a couple of days.

Once this AS engine is done, the next step is to define what type of Achievements are going into it. Now, you know those meetings you have every week with the head of departments, the project manager(s) and the occasional developer that is called in? (Of course you do) Well, Achievements are those type of thyings you put last in the list of things to discuss on that meeting. Once the engine done, there's no stopping what can be devised. Implementation of a new achievement is fast and inconsequential under most circumstances. Much more important things need to be discussed. Especially because if achievements give any sort of trouble, they can be easily removed from the game since they do not interfere with any of the game engines in place.

All that is left if for the guy in charge of the GUI to develop a AS frontend for players to check and bloat about. Again this is trivial. Subject to approval, of course. But the type of task that integrates well into all other GUI aspects and that soon will get passed and forgotten. Or are you going to tell me that someone who develops such a complex GUI for Diablo 3 as you are already seeing, can't handle a simple AS GUI?

...

Now, you can argue all this takes time still and that is your argument.

Of course it does! Trivial, doesn't mean 0 cost. Means it is of little concern. Of little significance. And this is so exactly because an AS system doesn't interfere with the game mechanics. The Obsever Pattern makes sure of that. It can be removed from the game anytime with only minimal adjustments. If done well, with just the need to hit "Rebuild Project" once.

Playtesting an achievements system is often done by the players themselves during the open beta stages and any needed adjustments are done to the AS engine directly without any changes to the core game. Since Achievements are nothing but counters and timers, these adjustments are nothing more than simple tweaks like "Ok, instead of killing him 20 times in 30 minutes, lets do it kill it 30 times in 20 minutes". Two variable values got changed." Big deal! You don't even need a full rebuild.

...

Any game mechanics takes time to develop. Similarly I could argue against Town Portals because Jay Wilson wants to remove them and they take time to develop (and are far more influential to the game core). But you don't hear Jay saying they take time to develop. You hear him using arguments based on what he wants for the game to be. I could use all sorts of things I don't like and just label them as "this takes time to implement!" as a basis for my argument against them. How lame do you think that is?

Games are not fully designed before they are implemented. Not anymore. They are among the most complex pieces of software known to man in these days. A game skeleton needs to exist. But much of what comes next will result from those weekly meetings, fan feedback and the ingenuity and intelligence of those involved in developing the game.

Because of this game features are often being debated nearly every single day in those offices. Time is a concern. But you have absolutely no basis to use this as an argument. You know nothing of the project schedule. You are completely out of the loop as anyone else in here concerning this. So every time you say it takes time and shouldn't be done, you are looking rather foolish. Especially if it just so happens the decision was already made to include AS.

This is the basis as to why I find this argument ridiculous and why it irritates me so much. There's some sort of intellectual dishonesty in using an argument as an unquestionable truth when that argument can't be validated as much as you try. Unless you resort to industrial espionage.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Re: D3 Achievements

Enough with the drama. Either you post a reply or you do not post at all. It is similar to saying that you reported a post. Nothing good ever comes from it and it almost always leads to flaming.

 

[Krugar]

Re: D3 Achievements

As for the remaining two arguments:

-patronizes 'outside-the-box' play

This is your decision to make, not Blizzard's. In fact it promotes in-the-box gameplay, because it brings back into the game, an inevitable characteristic that many players will eventually want to explore.

And if Achievements bother you, you ca simply ignore them. Ignore hem altogether and they will not bother you. How could this be a problem to you is beyond me.

-distracts players from the core game, especially in the context of co-op

I don't know even where to start.
What are you talking about? Achievements are rarely meant to be a core aspect of the game. If they are, I would probably switch my whole idea about them and join you in my criticism. But that's just not the case.

Achievements are a parallel aspect of gameplay that can be used by the player when they feel like, -- and often when they don't feel like playing the game normally. One certainly can devise achievements that are more tuned to normal gameplay. But these will most probably fail because normal gameplay achievements will often mean lack of a challenge.

And achievements are all about a Challenge the player can choose to accept outside the context of the storyline. Just a game feature that has no effect in the game an serves some players who actually likes these type of things, or others that need a change of air for a while.

Enough with the drama. Either you post a reply or you do not post at all. It is similar to saying that you reported a post. Nothing good ever comes from it and it almost always leads to flaming.

2 minutes too late.

 

[Starving_Poet]

Re: D3 Achievements

I have to agree with Krugar on this topic too. Achievements are absolutely voluntary. If you don't like them, you don't do them.

If someone else does them and you don't, they don't give the other player any special bonuses. They just give him a digital trophy room.

It's like complaining about these forums keeping a post count.

 

[Siyko]

Re: D3 Achievements

And where exactly do you base your own arguments? Your own logic could be used too to support any theoretical feature. And as such we would end up with a game with only minimal features, because everything else takes time.

Everything else that takes time has a value. When the only value present in a system is that it can be turned off, then it is a waste of resources.

An Achievement System (AS, from now on) is often developed using an Observer Pattern as its basis (you of course know what this is, don't you?). The actual implementation is nothing more than incrementing counters or timers that can run on their own thread, but often are attached to existing game threads. The timers doesn't even need to run continuously. They can run in intervals of time based on certain conditions set by the observer class.

Obviously timers and counters will be attached to these - but how? This isn't as simple as counting how many iterations of a while loop is run through - this is tracking an event, series of events, frequency of events, etc.

If I have an achivement 'kill two supermonsters within 30 seconds of each other', how can we do that? Well, we don't need a timer, we just need to inform the AS of the timestamp whenever a supermonster is killed, and have it perform logic based on its last known timestamp. If we're using an observer pattern, then we need to modify this 'enemy dies' class to report to the AS. What does it report? Well, this all depends - most likely we'd always inform it on a kill, and let it sort out the relevant information.

This is the typical weekend project you take home to get finished by Monday. There's no science in it. No outlandish complexity that a team of developers having to design a complete 3D engine from scratch couldn't handle in a couple of days.

A weekend assignment in a small program, sure. How much info in D3 are we going to track? If this thing runs on its own thread (with all the data it gets I am fairly sure it would), then what of the overhead involved? How do we optimize this? (for a PC game, we want the biggest hardware range possible, so sub-optimal algorithms are a high concern).

Once this AS engine is done, the next step is to define what type of Achievements are going into it. Now, you know those meetings you have every week with the head of departments, the project manager(s) and the occasional developer that is called in? (Of course you do) Well, Achievements are those type of thyings you put last in the list of things to discuss on that meeting.

Not really, this is a game design decision, it has very little to do with the developers until the list is complete. I don't know how much design developers have control over at Blizzard, but I assume not much. The list of achievements are an important subject, it's not the kind of thing you can bonk two designers' heads together and spit out a list. Significant thought has to go into this.

Once the engine done, there's no stopping what can be devised.

Hold on, when did we finish the engine? We installed hooks into the rest of the code and, assumedly, built the means to interpret that data. The engine isn't complete, we just have an API.

Implementation of a new achievement is fast and inconsequential under most circumstances. Much more important things need to be discussed. Especially because if achievements give any sort of trouble, they can be easily removed from the game since they do not interfere with any of the game engines in place.

This much is true.

All that is left if for the guy in charge of the GUI to develop a AS frontend for players to check and bloat about. Again this is trivial. Subject to approval, of course. But the type of task that integrates well into all other GUI aspects and that soon will get passed and forgotten. Or are you going to tell me that someone who develops such a complex GUI for Diablo 3 as you are already seeing, can't handle a simple AS GUI?

You're turning it into a question of difficulty - it's not difficult - it's consuming. Something like D3 cannot have a half-assed GUI in any aspect - we've all played games where the multiplayer interface or tutorial or something feels so CHEAP because it was clearly tacked on. Blizzard will not do this.

Now, you can argue all this takes time still and that is your argument.

Of course it does! Trivial, doesn't mean 0 cost. Means it is of little concern. Of little significance. And this is so exactly because an AS system doesn't interfere with the game mechanics. The Obsever Pattern makes sure of that. It can be removed from the game anytime with only minimal adjustments. If done well, with just the need to hit "Rebuild Project" once.

It doesn't interfere with the game mechanics, but the game mechanics interfere with it. Any change to the logic of the game might mean the AS has to change. For example, let's say we change the way inventory works slightly - instead of holding 5 healing potions as an array of item.potion.healing() objects, we only have one object - this object just has a variable that defines 'quantity'. That change is fine, but now we need to change the way AS interprets healing potions or else the "collect 20 healing potions" achievement will not work - or it might barf when thrown unknown properties of this item.

Playtesting an achievements system is often done by the players themselves during the open beta stages and any needed adjustments are done to the AS engine directly without any changes to the core game. Since Achievements are nothing but counters and timers, these adjustments are nothing more than simple tweaks like "Ok, instead of killing him 20 times in 30 minutes, lets do it kill it 30 times in 20 minutes". Two variable values got changed." Big deal! You don't even need a full rebuild.

This is playtesting the IMPACT of a WORKING achivement system. There is still plenty of testing in getting the achivement system working 100%.

Any game mechanics takes time to develop. Similarly I could argue against Town Portals because Jay Wilson wants to remove them and they take time to develop (and are far more influential to the game core). But you don't hear Jay saying they take time to develop. You hear him using arguments based on what he wants for the game to be. I could use all sorts of things I don't like and just label them as "this takes time to implement!" as a basis for my argument against them. How lame do you think that is?

First of all, you're citing PR-speak and applying it to the design/development environment. You should know those are totally different worlds. Secondly, achivement systems do not really affect the gaming experience, while TP certainly would. Achievements are not 'part of the game experience', they are more like a leaderboard or high score list. Secondly, 'it takes time to implement' was just one concern - there are more concerns. If this was the only concern to an otherwise desirable system, then you're right, it would be ignored. But it is not the only concern, and the system is not desirable.

Games are not fully designed before they are implemented. Not anymore. They are among the most complex pieces of software known to man in these days. A game skeleton needs to exist. But much of what comes next will result from those weekly meetings, fan feedback and the ingenuity and intelligence of those involved in developing the game.

Because of this game features are often being debated nearly every single day in those offices. Time is a concern. But you have absolutely no basis to use this as an argument. You know nothing of the project schedule. You are completely out of the loop as anyone else in here concerning this. So every time you say it takes time and shouldn't be done, you are looking rather foolish. Especially if it just so happens the decision was already made to include AS.

You're applying this argument in the wrong context. The original point was along the lines of:

'Even if you dont want achivements in any form, if it can be turned off, then it's no harm to you - the end gamer!'

It isn't, has never been, and shouldn't be the only reason to keeping back an otherwise desirable system, so do not argue against made-up claims that it is.

This is the basis as to why I find this argument ridiculous and why it irritates me so much. There's some sort of intellectual dishonesty in using an argument as an unquestionable truth when that argument can't be validated as much as you try. Unless you resort to industrial espionage.

So speculation is 100% useless because it cannot be confirmed? Unless Blizzard has some magical way of developing games that doesn't involve writing code, then the point remains as a strike against achievements.

 

[Demetrium]

Re: D3 Achievements

Krugar is just trolling, please stop replying to him.

 

[Krugar]

Re: D3 Achievements

Everything else that takes time has a value. When the only value present in a system is that it can be turned off, then it is a waste of resources.

Says you. I say there is value in an AS because I like Achievements. So, why do you insist in this line of thought where you can read on this thread a lot of players saying they would like or they wouldn't mind having an AS?

Aren't you just forgetting that there are also other people playing the game and they too have a saying. Why do you insist there is no value in AS? At least, I take the stance I wouldn't mind either way; Diabo 3 with or without AS is ok with me.

Obviously timers and counters will be attached to these - but how? This isn't as simple as counting how many iterations of a while loop is run through - this is tracking an event, series of events, frequency of events, etc.

err... That's exactly what an observer class and its helper class are. They observe changes in the system and some of these changes trigger the report of these events to other classes. There's no magic involved. And no complex code. Certainly not when it comes to an AS system. Even in Artificial Intelligence where the observer pattern can be used to support more complicated Publisher/Subscriber relationships, this is essentially pretty straightforward code. Certainly within the capabilities of someone willing to develop for a company like Blizzard.

If I have an achivement 'kill two supermonsters within 30 seconds of each other', how can we do that? Well, we don't need a timer, we just need to inform the AS of the timestamp whenever a supermonster is killed, and have it perform logic based on its last known timestamp. If we're using an observer pattern, then we need to modify this 'enemy dies' class to report to the AS.

No. We don't need to do that. The only thing needed is for the supermonster class (assuming this would be the choice for the Subject class on the observer pattern) was to include on its list of observer classes (a list that already exists for other game logic) this one more observer meant to support AS. Severing this link has no consequences in the game. So, removing the observer class and all its logic, shouldn't have no effect on the game since any programmer serious about their work, will never allow for an observer class to have an impact on the Subject.

Furthermore, the actual addition of the observer class to the Subject's observers list is not done by the subject. It's usually done at object creation by another pattern called Factory. The whole system can be (and is, or else the programmer would be in trouble) perfectly encapsulated and perfectly transparent.

A weekend assignment in a small program, sure. How much info in D3 are we going to track? If this thing runs on its own thread (with all the data it gets I am fairly sure it would), then what of the overhead involved? How do we optimize this? (for a PC game, we want the biggest hardware range possible, so sub-optimal algorithms are a high concern).

Uh? There is no way an AS will have a performance impact on a system beyond the most insignificant of digits. Only on mission critical systems one would have to evaluate the impact of an Observer class and its helper classes on the whole system. Anything that turns an observer class supporting an AS into a bootleneck has to be a bug. If you are a programmer you should know this. If you are not a programmer but closely related to the development process, you should know that code optimization is dealt only later and as a whole.

But above all, this is simply a system that increments counters and updates/ resets timers. We are talking of processor cycles in the hundreths at most. This is absolutely meaningless in today's typical window of thousands of trillions of clocks per second.

Achievements have been implemented in games back in the 80's Commodore and ZX Spectrum with no impact whatsoever. We are talking of 8 bit processors and memory spaces totaling 48k! What impact exactly do you think they will do today? Heck! And I even know how to do it. Still recently have been learning how to program for the Z80 as part of my ZX Spectrum nostalgia feeling. I love it.

Hold on, when did we finish the engine?

And what do you think an engine actually is? Don't mistake the idea of complex software structures like 3D engines, AI, or Physics engines, as the measure for any other Engine. Those are actually the exception.

A software engine is an encapsulated block of functionality. It's size or complexity is irrelevant. A software program, and a game no less, can have thousands of different engines. Any AS will have its own engine. Often no more than a handful of classes.

It doesn't interfere with the game mechanics, but the game mechanics interfere with it. Any change to the logic of the game might mean the AS has to change.

Ok. You are definitely not a programmer. Or at least not one used to handling the finer aspects of Object Oriented Programming.
It's ok. Really. But it's important for me to establish the boundaries of this conversation. Where I can go to be made understood and where I shouldn't go, or risk not being understood.

One of the chief objectives of object oriented programming (OOP) is to achieve encapsulating at the lowest (as in, best) possible level. Design Patterns, of which the Observer pattern is one example, are specially designed to guarantee this level of Code Safety.

A programmer, and a professional programmer especially, better adhere to what is known in the area as Best Practices for OOP of fail miserably at their profession. A well defined Observer Pattern will not suffer from lack of encapsulation. And thus will not force the rest of the code into the type of dependencies that could have any programmer out of their job.

This is playtesting the IMPACT of a WORKING achivement system. There is still plenty of testing in getting the achivement system working 100%.

Some. Not much. It's a rather simple system. It's hard for me to think of anything much simpler than an Achievement system.

So speculation is 100% useless because it cannot be confirmed?

No. But turning speculation into a irreparable truth is a gross abuse.

If you tell me there are chances this system would take a lot of time to develop and so you feel maybe it's a bad thing to do, I could try and argue over that type of speculation in less aggressive terms as I did some posts back.

But you went a few steps beyond that. Heck, you took the whole extra mile. You tried to turn nothing more than an hypothesis into an solid argument against the development of an AS. That is unfair.

Mostly because when you are questioned, you then go on and force on me the proof necessary to disproof your false argument, when you yourself make no effort to support it. And so, I'm force into two walls of text just to try and show you that:

1. It's not much work

2. It's not demanding in terms of game design

3. You cannot say, and never will be able to say, exactly how much an impact this would have on Blizzard's currenr Diablo 3 schedule.

 

[Krugar]

Re: D3 Achievements

Krugar is just trolling, please stop replying to him.

What? How dare you? What on earth!...

I'm trying my best to explain why and how these things are usually made and you dare call me a troll?

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: D3 Achievements

No big deal? You are basing this off what exactly?

This same (faulty) argument could be used to support absolutely any theoretical feature. The point is implementing ANYTHING (including achievements) is never trivial. There's brainstorming, design, development, core testing, implementation, QA, redesign, and documentation. ALL of this is required, and none of it is trivial.


Why not have a 'make your own class'? Why not have alternative color palletes? Why not have a map editor? Why not have an extra 'joke' class?

Lols, your comprehension is laughable .... it is TRIVIAL compared to any of the other things you mentioned .. it does take time and some work but that work in nothing compared to making a map editor or an extra class .... for very OBVIOUS reasons i need not state ... since i can't believe you don't know the difference between the effort used in writing few stat counters (which its structure can already be taken from other projects like WoW) with a UI and the effort needed for making a new class in D3 .. if you don't then don't read any further cause debating with you would be a waste of time.

They EXPLICITLY stated they will implements achievements in ALL their upcoming games (D3, SC2, ... etc etc) and will use B.net2 for tracking these .... they don't think it's a big deal really like you do .. and they do know BETTER ... not to mention they already have experience with them in WoW.

Because it's not as good as other things that should be in the game.

Not as good according to you .. Blizz and many fans think otherwise.

I hate to break your illusion, but Blizzard is a company seeking to make money, and like it or not, their games DO have a deadline. It might be far away, but there is a point where it becomes more harmful to wait than to release it, and at that point they will release it.

Hahaha .. you are the delusional one .... they care about content and quality before anything .... and they do scrap projects if they don't meet the QUALITY standard they set regardless of how much was spent on it (both time and money) .. and i doubt they do set a specific deadline at all before reaching Beta .. just a vague one .. which is again what makes them different from companies that set a solid date even with the game still in alpha or pre-alpha.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. People like fresh challenges and making up their own gameplay, this is true. This is, however, counter-intuitive to achievements which simply grant the user another list of things to do.

There is nothing counter intuitive .. even if you say so it doesn't make much sense ... achievements range from thing most normal players would do (at that part it acts more as a record for the player) and other things only the most dedicated or skilled would dare attempt ... that's a challenge that's directed, clear and recorded .. HOW is that counter intuitive in any way.

It seems you are assuming the achievements will not encourage a new type of game play and give fresh challenges -probably because you don't like achievements- how the heck do you know how well the achievements in D3 will be made ... or are you just making things up.

Make it worth their while? Are you implying rewards for achievements now? Because I wrote a pretty long post about why that's a horrible idea.

What you wrote means nothing when i see games (i.e Halo 3) giving nice rewards for completing a number of achievements and work just fine ... of course the rewards are cosmetic at best and have no impact on the gameplay ... just for bragging rights (i.e a chance to make one of your items looks unique and one of a kind ... or a cape with a cool emblem on it which has normal stats ... etc etc etc)

Ever play TF2 after one of the class updates?

"why didn't you heal me?"
"im trying to get the 'win a round without healing anyone' achievement"

If you don't see any potential of this in D3, I ask you to come up with a list of achievements you would like to see that will not create a similar situation.

Lols ... you are already assuming lots of non-sense here ... there is no reason whatsoever to give any value for your assumptions ... and here is why.

-Achievments are optional ... that person with that mentality will act the same even if there is no actual achievement for it ... or he can think of even worse things on his own to challenge himself (like killing 10 team mates .. etc etc) .... if achievements are designed right this can easily be avoided and give something good for achievements hunter to focus on instead of leaving things for their imagination.

-Achievements could work to encourage team work instead of the other way around ... just add "team" or "party" before some of them and it will work

Ex:
"Teamwork"
While in a team Kill all Bosses on Hell diff. without dying once.

"Healer of the Week"
While in a team pick up 50 health globes to heal your teammates.

"Merchant"
Trade 200 items with you friends"

There are tons and tons of ideas .. just if you have an open mind.

------------------------------------------------------------------


Sadly you just shut your mind on your weird argument and refuse to see that it is clearly obvious achievements can BE MADE to serve any purpose the designer wants them to iuf they are done right (even with rewards .. cosmetic as we said).

And the "it takes time" argument is really pathetic ... everything in the game development takes time ... if Blizz want achievements in all their upcoming games i'm pretty sure they know that better than any of us (and indeed better than you) and already have their schedules arranged with "achievements" sessions in them :coffee:

What? How dare you? What on earth!...

I'm trying my best to explain why and how these things are usually made and you dare call me a troll?

Ignore him Krugar, his post actually qualifies as troll or spam since it adds nothing to the topic.

I'm not very good with technical stuff (more of an artist) but i really liked reading you tech-oriented replies here.

 

[Siyko]

Re: D3 Achievements

Lols, your comprehension is laughable .... it is TRIVIAL compared to any of the other things you mentioned .. it does take time and some work but that work in nothing compared to making a map editor or an extra class .... for very OBVIOUS reasons i need not state ... since i can't believe you don't know the difference between the effort used in writing few stat counters (which its structure can already be taken from other projects like WoW) with a UI and the effort needed for making a new class in D3 .. if you don't then don't read any further cause debating with you would be a waste of time.

Straw man argument never fails does it? I never said they're equal. Your whole paragraph serves to satisfy your own ego, it has nothing to do with what I said. Hope it was fun.

Hahaha .. you are the delusional one .... they care about content and quality before anything .... and they do scrap projects if they don't meet the QUALITY standard they set regardless of how much was spent on it (both time and money) .. and i doubt they do set a specific deadline at all before reaching Beta .. just a vague one .. which is again what makes them different from companies that set a solid date even with the game still in alpha or pre-alpha.

If you think a blizzard exec would make a decision on release that would knowingly hurt the company more than it would help, you are the delusional one. This is how the world works.

There is nothing counter intuitive .. even if you say so it doesn't make much sense ... achievements range from thing most normal players would do (at that part it acts more as a record for the player) and other things only the most dedicated or skilled would dare attempt ... that's a challenge that's directed, clear and recorded .. HOW is that counter intuitive in any way.

Which do you think was more impressive, the first person to climb Mt Everest, or the 2nd? Who do you think had a better sense of satisfaction upon completion?

When you make your own challenge and fulfill them, it's very different than being handed a chore and saying 'that sounds kinda hard'.

It seems you are assuming the achievements will not encourage a new type of game play and give fresh challenges -probably because you don't like achievements- how the heck do you know how well the achievements in D3 will be made ... or are you just making things up.

I guess my knowledge of achievements is limited to achievements in games I've played, what a horrible sin I have committed. There are plenty of examples of bad achievements in this thread. I see some examples of yours below so I will respond to them.

What you wrote means nothing when i see games (i.e Halo 3) giving nice rewards for completing a number of achievements and work just fine ... of course the rewards are cosmetic at best and have no impact on the gameplay ... just for bragging rights (i.e a chance to make one of your items looks unique and one of a kind ... or a cape with a cool emblem on it which has normal stats ... etc etc etc)

e-peen

Lols ... you are already assuming lots of non-sense here ... there is no reason whatsoever to give any value for your assumptions ... and here is why.

First of all, don't write like a retard. Secondly, don't write like I'm a retard. You'll notice people take you a little more seriously when you don't start every sentence with 'Lol'. Just some life advice.

-Achievments are optional ... that person with that mentality will act the same even if there is no actual achievement for it ... or he can think of even worse things on his own to challenge himself (like killing 10 team mates .. etc etc) .... if achievements are designed right this can easily be avoided and give something good for achievements hunter to focus on instead of leaving things for their imagination.

-Achievements could work to encourage team work instead of the other way around ... just add "team" or "party" before some of them and it will work

Ex:
"Teamwork"
While in a team Kill all Bosses on Hell diff. without dying once.

"Healer of the Week"
While in a team pick up 50 health globes to heal your teammates.

"Merchant"
Trade 200 items with you friends"

So these are exactly the types of achievements I would expect to see. The first is nothing but bragging rights - and crappy ones at that. Decent players will do this already - the achievement adds nothing to it.

Second and third are just things that either get eventually unlocked through normal play, or you'll sit there farming for unfathomable reasons. Of what value are they?

There are tons and tons of ideas .. just if you have an open mind.

There are tons of ideas. However, in all the games I've played to date, I haven't seen any good ideas yet.

Sadly you just shut your mind on your weird argument and refuse to see that it is clearly obvious achievements can BE MADE to serve any purpose the designer wants them to iuf they are done right (even with rewards .. cosmetic as we said).

"Im right you are wrong!"

say something useful.

And the "it takes time" argument is really pathetic ... everything in the game development takes time ... if Blizz want achievements in all their upcoming games i'm pretty sure they know that better than any of us (and indeed better than you) and already have their schedules arranged with "achievements" sessions in them :coffee:

So "your argument is really pathetic" followed by "i agree". That's smooth.

 

[Siyko]

Re: D3 Achievements

You clearly know more about programming than me, but the entire argument is beside the point

1. It's not much work

2. It's not demanding in terms of game design

3. You cannot say, and never will be able to say, exactly how much an impact this would have on Blizzard's currenr Diablo 3 schedule.

1) it is some work

2) it is some demand

3) it is an impact.

Someone posted an analogy back where you buy a meal: an entree that you like, and a side dish you don't like and have no desire to eat. Wouldn't you trade that side dish for a bit more of the entree? This is the entire point of the 'development resources' point.

Is it 'trivial'? I don't know, how do you define trivial? How many 'trivial to implement + useless features' would YOU tolerate?

Of course I understand 'useless' is subjective, but so far the only pro I see for achievements is 'e-peen', something that I take great issue with in multiplayer games - I feel it damages the community, the gaming experience, and player attitude.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: D3 Achievements

Straw man argument never fails does it? I never said they're equal. Your whole paragraph serves to satisfy your own ego, it has nothing to do with what I said. Hope it was fun.

Eluding the point ... fail much .... you clearly equated them if you are comparing them directly ... you can't equate making a class or a map editor with a simple events counter .. that's a completely false and delusional comparison because the difference in the work needed for the first makes the second trivial in terms of the time and effort needed.

And stop you pathetic attempts at perosnal insults ... +more fail.

If you think a blizzard exec would make a decision on release that would knowingly hurt the company more than it would help, you are the delusional one. This is how the world works.

WTH !!!! .... i say they care about the quality of the game more than release dates, effort or money spent and you talk to me about decisions hurting the company ... apparently you know nothing about Blizz ... we have a clear example for that (SC:Ghost much .. and there are many other of their games that got canceled because they what they care about the most is their QUALITY standard) .. really WTH ... you also magically and out of thin air assumed that adding achievements would hurt the game ... delusional much ... and can't read too ... THEY PLAN TO ADD ACHIEVEMENTS IN ALL THEIR UPCOMING GAMES ... does the CAPs help you read better ... hope so ^_^

Maybe Blizz should listen to you and cancel all their games cause they take effort and time to make and sit on their back in Hawaii enjoying their WoW money. /just giving you a taste of your hyperbolism

Which do you think was more impressive, the first person to climb Mt Everest, or the 2nd? Who do you think had a better sense of satisfaction upon completion?

Nonsense ... people still climb Mt.Everst till today and feel very proud of it ... cause it is a freaking challenge regardless of who did it first .. not everyone can do it .. that's what a freaking challenge is ... so hard to understand .. huh.

When you make your own challenge and fulfill them, it's very different than being handed a chore and saying 'that sounds kinda hard'.

Talk about delusional ... how do you know it is really challenging or that it really requires skill or effort ... the game designers indeed know about that much better than some delusional players.

e-peen

Try a meaningful reply next time ... the idea works very well and there are many examples to that regardless of whatever bad experiences you babble about.

First of all, don't write like a retard. Secondly, don't write like I'm a retard. You'll notice people take you a little more seriously when you don't start every sentence with 'Lol'. Just some life advice.

Blah blah ... i didn't start every sentence with "lols" .. i'm really getting tired of your hyperboles and delusions.

So these are exactly the types of achievements I would expect to see. The first is nothing but bragging rights - and crappy ones at that. Decent players will do this already - the achievement adds nothing to it.

Second and third are just things that either get eventually unlocked through normal play, or you'll sit there farming for unfathomable reasons. Of what value are they?

Yeah, because the ideas i came up within 5 secs on the fly are the ONLY ideas that can be made ... gosh ... close mindedness .. delusions and always jumping to conclusions ... there is no point in giving any examples to you cause you won't listen either way.

As for their value .. well eventhough i'm sure you won't understand .. they are of value for people who like that kind of thing .... ok

There are tons of ideas. However, in all the games I've played to date, I haven't seen any good ideas yet.

"Im right you are wrong!"

say something useful.

Sigh ... so much fail really .... you state you only played games with bad achievements and then turn that into a fact that all achievements are bad ... that's exactly what CLOSE MINDED is ... so hard to understand i guess.

 

[Krugar]

Re: D3 Achievements

1) it is some work

2) it is some demand

3) it is an impact.

If this is what you conclude from my posts, then we have nothing more to talk about. You aren't going to flinch even when faced with the best possible arguments I can come up with.

It's only a shame you confuse your distaste for achievements with their usefulness in the context of a broad game that has the potential to satisfy all sorts of players with a small share of their desires.

You negate Achievements basing yourself on arguments you can't sustain, defend or in any way support. Not satisfied you negate any effort to show you your arguments are wrong. You are thus taking a fundamentalist stance on this issue.

And I will refuse to debate this any further with you. And now... let's go back to what started this all, shall we? Appreciate the irony:

Why having both (and on top of that making one of them entirely optional) is a matter for visceral criticism is really beyond me. Perhaps it's the new fad... Criticize Achievements! Just do it! Nike style!

I was right all the time. But it's ok. I often am.

 

[Vitamins]

Re: D3 Achievements

This is true if and only if the game can only be played one way, completely linearly. This is not the case with Diablo 3.

My point was that achievement systems are extensions of the reward systems that are inherent in all games.

Look at Final Fantasy 1. Some people beat it with a single white mage - that's friggin hard. I'm sure it was quite a puzzle to solve (before guides came out) and folks wondered if it was possible.

Cool. Wouldn't it have been more cool if people got an achievement for doing it? I guess it wouldn't matter in a single player game, but if FF1 was online and it had an achievement system, then you'd be able to show off to other players and maybe even be awarded with something.

What if there was an achivement "beat the game with a single white mage"? Well, you're basically in the same position, except now you KNOW its possible, AND the developers have already done it, so we've already detracted something from the experience.

Yes, you'd know that it can be done and that would indeed take away from the fun of discovering it by yourself, but I don't see how that would completely "distract you from the experience." You'd still have to wrestle with the challenge of beating the game with one white mage.

I love coming up with challenges for games and fulfilling them, I dont see why I need the game developers to come up with a list of challenges - it feels very condescending when "Clear the catacombs in 4 minutes" is right next to "Open a treasure chest".

This is an argument against stupid achievements and not achievement systems in general though. And you can still come up with your own achievements regardless of whether or not there's an achievement system in the game. In fact, you could come up with your own list of achievements and then compare your list with the developers' list. Maybe you'd find some that you'd like?

Basically, if it's an achievement, then the developers have made sure it's doable by most people - and if it's doable by most people, then it's hardly an 'achievement'. It's just a task that you have been asked to do for no reason.

I think you're setting up a straw man at the end of your post when you say an achievement is something that has to be made easy enough to obtain, so that everybody can earn it. That doesn't have to be the case.