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Just curious...why does everyone care about achievements so much?

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Originally posted by: blurredvision
Originally posted by: Beev
Yeah but the rewards for ME didn't affect the game (unless I am recalling them incorrectly) they just gave you gamer pictures.
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A reward is a reward.
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Achievements in Mass Effect do give you in-game bonuses. I forget the specifics, but basically getting an achievement for killing people with rifles gave your character a boost in marksmanship points or something.
 
Originally posted by: ducci
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Originally posted by: Beev
Yeah but the rewards for ME didn't affect the game (unless I am recalling them incorrectly) they just gave you gamer pictures.
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A reward is a reward.
Click to expand...

Achievements in Mass Effect do give you in-game bonuses. I forget the specifics, but basically getting an achievement for killing people with rifles gave your character a boost in marksmanship points or something.
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Yup, different achievements would give you different bonuses, and the skill-based ones would allow you to give that skill to a new character that might not normally have that ability (such as creating an engineer with the assault rifle skill).
 
I couldn't care less about achievements, but it was a brilliant move by Microsoft. There are people out there who buy games for no other reason than to score the points. I think you could seriously sell 1000 achievement points for $60 on marketplace.
 
Originally posted by: ducci
Achievements in Mass Effect do give you in-game bonuses. I forget the specifics, but basically getting an achievement for killing people with rifles gave your character a boost in marksmanship points or something.
Click to expand...

That's cool, I had forgotten about that. Thanks for the refresher 🙂
 
I wanted to get 1000 in COD4 cause I got so close and just wanted to complete it. I got about 970 in Madden because I changed the difficulty settings and got all the achievements in 1 game just for fun. Other than that I couldn't care less about them.
 
I don't care about the gamer score, but I like simply trying to achieve things. A lot of the good games have their achievements set so that you have to really experience every aspect of a game to get all of the achievements. I like that. Some of them really do build skill in the game rather than just being worthless reasons to do stupid things. Gears of War has achievements for certain numbers of kills with the various weapons... If you want the achievement, you can't be a no-ball sissy sniper the whole time and never learn to kill with a pistol or outsmart an opponent into walking right in to a melee trap.

I don't care about e-peen, though. I'm never going to compare gamer scores or crap like that.

I really got in to my score with BF2 on PC and as much as I don't regret playing the hell out of that game, I'm really not interested in letting another game consume me completely. Earning the awards in it did encourage me to learn to use all the vehicles and classes effectively, learn teamwork skills, how to command, and overall made me an effective player.
 
The randomness of something popping up is kinda cool, but in general I hate all the stuff you have to do to get them. There should just be 3 per game: bronze for beating the game on easy, silver for normal, and gold for hard. Other than that its stupid!
 
Originally posted by: coldmeat
It adds more replay value. When I finish the game, I have something else to work towards.
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And it just makes you feel like you did something. Stupid I know but it does
 
Achievements, if done right, can be fun and create a whole new meta-game or kind of guide you into a different way of playing a game that you wouldn't have tried otherwise. Geometry Wars is the best example of this with the Pacifist achievement. You basically had to survive for a minute without doing any shooting. Created a whole new way to play the game.

When developers take the time and effort, Achievements can be great. Unfortunately, there are a lot of developers that take the lame path (see King Kong, Avatar).
 
When I play a game, I need a goal. That's all games really are anyways. Just a set of goals. Some people prefer some goals over others. Some people dislike certain goals. It revolves around how fun it is for them individually to pursue a certain goal in a game.

For me, achievements give me an excuse to do something in a game that I have fun playing. I am also selective about certain achievements though because some feel like more of a frustrating nuisance than they do fun but that is just me and I am still guilty of trying to get them at times.
 
Originally posted by: ducci
I'm a big fan, but I hate multiplayer achievements.

Nothing is more annoying than playing online with someone who is interested only in getting an achievement rather than actually playing the game.
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especially some of the ones for TF2(on the pc or 360)

play as all classes.... or win a round on all these maps...its kind of hard. because u dont know what kind of team your gonna be on
 
Originally posted by: Quintox
Originally posted by: coldmeat
It adds more replay value. When I finish the game, I have something else to work towards.
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And it just makes you feel like you did something. Stupid I know but it does
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It's not really stupid at all. Part of the fun of games comes from overcoming the challenge, achieving if you will. Being able to show that off makes achieving them even more fun.

And besides, theres nothing more old school that showing off your high score. Its come quite a bit further than posting your three letter initials at your local arcade, but its the same sentiment.
 
human nature is pride. We humans enjoy being patted on the back for accomplishments, and for "one-upmanship"
 
You know there was a time when people understood the concept of a challenge. A challenge is as basic as "Hey Bob, check out what I did in CoD4" "Wow let me try, hey that's fucking hard to do" "Yea man, awesome". Achievements are basically pre-created challenges, things that should be more difficult than what they expect the "average gamer" to pull off (except there's usually a few carrot/stick ones that are disgustingly easy) but that the developers thought were cool challenges to attempt. A lot of challenges are pretty poorly thought out, but there are usually a few good ones that are rewarding to pull off.

A lot of the Fallout 3 ones I've gotten so far have been incredibly basic, so I view them in a different manner, instead of challenges, they've kind of been like mile stones. Because Bethesda makes such huge games, mile stones actually have some meaning, they show how 'worldy' your character is. Ultimately though, I'd prefer challenge based achievements to these milestone ones. There has been a few cool ones though that signify I did something moderately unique.

Edit: Also, another basis of achievements are statistics. It's boring to say 2 people completed a game, there's nothing to review there. You completed Fallout 3, hey I completed that too! However, achievements statistics can be interesting because they show how you might have completed the game or what your strengths were. It's similar to saying 2 people are baseball players. At it's base level, that's pretty boring information, but if I give you their errors, hits, home runs, position, etc. All of a sudden now you have data to compare and contrast. You can start to build an image in your head as to what type of player this is.
 
Originally posted by: skace
You know there was a time when people understood the concept of a challenge. A challenge is as basic as "Hey Bob, check out what I did in CoD4" "Wow let me try, hey that's fucking hard to do" "Yea man, awesome". Achievements are basically pre-created challenges, things that should be more difficult than what they expect the "average gamer" to pull off (except there's usually a few carrot/stick ones that are disgustingly easy) but that the developers thought were cool challenges to attempt. A lot of challenges are pretty poorly thought out, but there are usually a few good ones that are rewarding to pull off.

A lot of the Fallout 3 ones I've gotten so far have been incredibly basic, so I view them in a different manner, instead of challenges, they've kind of been like mile stones. Because Bethesda makes such huge games, mile stones actually have some meaning, they show how 'worldy' your character is. Ultimately though, I'd prefer challenge based achievements to these milestone ones. There has been a few cool ones though that signify I did something moderately unique.

Edit: Also, another basis of achievements are statistics. It's boring to say 2 people completed a game, there's nothing to review there. You completed Fallout 3, hey I completed that too! However, achievements statistics can be interesting because they show how you might have completed the game or what your strengths were. It's similar to saying 2 people are baseball players. At it's base level, that's pretty boring information, but if I give you their errors, hits, home runs, position, etc. All of a sudden now you have data to compare and contrast. You can start to build an image in your head as to what type of player this is.
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My image of someone who has almost all the achievements in every game he's played = get a fvcking life. 😛

I can see the point of some achievements as you stated - just a challenge. But I'd rather play the game for the enjoyment of the game, and less emphasis on "ok instead of beating the game or enjoying it with my friends, we need to do this, this, and this just so I can get a 25pt achievement" and spend hours trying to accomplish it.

That and the time I have to dedicate towards playing 360 has rapidly diminished over the past year, between work, marathon training, the kiddo, friends, ladies, and house projects.

And I'm not knocking those who try to get achievements. Different strokes for different folks...back in the N64 days I would have been someone who would have tried for all of them.
 
Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
Originally posted by: skace
You know there was a time when people understood the concept of a challenge. A challenge is as basic as "Hey Bob, check out what I did in CoD4" "Wow let me try, hey that's fucking hard to do" "Yea man, awesome". Achievements are basically pre-created challenges, things that should be more difficult than what they expect the "average gamer" to pull off (except there's usually a few carrot/stick ones that are disgustingly easy) but that the developers thought were cool challenges to attempt. A lot of challenges are pretty poorly thought out, but there are usually a few good ones that are rewarding to pull off.

A lot of the Fallout 3 ones I've gotten so far have been incredibly basic, so I view them in a different manner, instead of challenges, they've kind of been like mile stones. Because Bethesda makes such huge games, mile stones actually have some meaning, they show how 'worldy' your character is. Ultimately though, I'd prefer challenge based achievements to these milestone ones. There has been a few cool ones though that signify I did something moderately unique.

Edit: Also, another basis of achievements are statistics. It's boring to say 2 people completed a game, there's nothing to review there. You completed Fallout 3, hey I completed that too! However, achievements statistics can be interesting because they show how you might have completed the game or what your strengths were. It's similar to saying 2 people are baseball players. At it's base level, that's pretty boring information, but if I give you their errors, hits, home runs, position, etc. All of a sudden now you have data to compare and contrast. You can start to build an image in your head as to what type of player this is.
Click to expand...

My image of someone who has almost all the achievements in every game he's played = get a fvcking life. 😛

I can see the point of some achievements as you stated - just a challenge. But I'd rather play the game for the enjoyment of the game, and less emphasis on "ok instead of beating the game or enjoying it with my friends, we need to do this, this, and this just so I can get a 25pt achievement" and spend hours trying to accomplish it.

That and the time I have to dedicate towards playing 360 has rapidly diminished over the past year, between work, marathon training, the kiddo, friends, ladies, and house projects.

And I'm not knocking those who try to get achievements. Different strokes for different folks...back in the N64 days I would have been someone who would have tried for all of them.
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Says the lifer in a forum...
 
They allow the cheap high of RPG grinding to be combined with mind numbing frustration of jumping puzzles! Fuck yes!
 
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