Achievements/Trophys

[ThunderPeel2001]

I know a lot of people here really hate them, but I'm the opposite: I love them (provided they're not really annoyingly difficult to get). I know it's sad, but I do get a sense of accomplishment knowing I've done "everything" in a game. (Although, I hate Steam Achievements, but because there's generally 5,000 of them per game.)

I occasionally look around my XBox Live friends' profiles and compare our achievements, but there's no getting away from the fact that it's really, really, annoying to do: There's no "compare all" option, and you have to scroll through shitloads of games before you see the games you both own. It's really irritating, and rather crappy. (Maybe it's better on the PS3, I don't know.)

Does anyone know of a site that puts all these things into one place, so you can compare your progress? (A website somewhere?) I find it rather useful to see a) If I'm shit at games and If an achievement is actually achievable by normal humans.

Also, it's interesting to see how far people have gotten into games before they've decided to do something else. (I just noticed that a Thumb -- I forget who -- has completed every single Fallout 3 achievement, including all the addons! Wow.)

Speaking of which, I wish XBox Live wouldn't mix addon achievments with main game achievements. I spend time wondering what on earth a description is making reference to, and then realise it's from some add-on that I don't own. Pointless!

[Erkki]

I don't hate them, but I don't like that they are mandatory (on XBox at least?). There are very few games where I've gotten all achievements, I only feel the urge to get 100% if I'm missing just a few. And I absolutely don't like achievements based on game completion (a'la completed Chapter 1), I much prefer them to be about doing weird stuff that not everyone will do, so they will be a surprise.

There are sites like what you were talking about, but I don't remember the names. Giant Bomb also pulls achievement data, but I don't know how they present it.

[elmuerte]

I don't hate them, I dislike them because they are often pointless and often contain spoilers. Also, they rank up egos; and I really hate that.

[Squid Division]

I like them. They're a way of getting me to do stuff I might not have otherwise. I do like the story based ones because you can look at someone's profile and figure out how far along they got in the game, which can be useful. My favorite implementation is using them to lengthen a game experience for a game I already love like the Assassin's Creed series or Fallout - just give me an excuse to spend more time in a world I already like.

Collection achievements can go to hell though. If I have to collect more than about a hundred things, I'm not going to do it, especially in linear games like Enslaved.

[Hermie]

I like them too, but they also sometimes become the death of me due to completionitis. I could care less about the actual gamerscore, but I admit that I fall in the so called "gamification" trap of putting in extra effort, then feeling a sense of relief/accomplishment once I hear the little blip.

Giant Bomb does do some cool stuff with the achievement API, like, as you said, giving you a percentage of how many has gotten that particular achievement, and based on that tells you if it is common/uncommon/rare. They also rate your progress on the amount of achievements you have compared to the average, as well as chart your playtime and genre preferences. I enjoy some good stat porn.

[Tanukitsune]

I don't give a rat's ass about gamerscore? Achievements to me are a good excuse to play more of a game and I love when the game "rewards" me for doing something cool... it's like a pat on the head or a carrot on a stick?

Game can become better if the achievements are done well, I've said many times that the only reason I loved Condemned was because I played the game with no guns because of the achievement, which made it much more fun!

I'm also a bit of a completionist, And have when I can't get 100% of a game because of a stupid achievement...

[JonCole]

I absolutely love achievements. It lets me get the most out of games I love by giving me motivation to hunt down obscure ways to play or master gameplay elements that might be out of my normal comfort zone.

As for achievement tracking, I absolutely love TrueAchievements.com. It lets you track your achievement progress and compare it to not only your friends, but also gamers in your region as well as user-created groups. Since the community is achievement-minded, users can arrange achievement boosting sessions to help hunt down that toughie that a handful of people want to grab.

They also created something called TrueAchievement score, which weighs the points of achievements based on the completion ratio of the community as a whole. The less people who earned a specific achievement, the greater the TA ratio that's multiplied to the original score to dictate the weighted value. It's kind of a neat way to not only see the value of an achievement based on the whim of a developer, but also to see the value of an achievement in terms of subjective skill.

If enough people are interested and join up, I imagine we can make a Thumbs group on there to better compare achievements and maybe even boost. Just let me know.

[toblix]

Boosting the fucking achievements.

[ThunderPeel2001]

If enough people are interested and join up, I imagine we can make a Thumbs group on there to better compare achievements and maybe even boost. Just let me know.

I'm in! (Although "boosting" may be a little too far for me -- not sure.)

[ThunderPeel2001]

As for achievement tracking, I absolutely love TrueAchievements.com.

This site rocks! Everyone should join (and make me happy).

[ThunderPeel2001]

Also, it's interesting to see how far people have gotten into games before they've decided to do something else. (I just noticed that a Thumb -- I forget who -- has completed every single Fallout 3 achievement, including all the addons! Wow.)

And then I saw this video, and I'm not so impressed. Hmph!

tW3mbLAKrsY

Pretty pointless.

[JonCole]

And then I saw this video, and I'm not so impressed. Hmph!

tW3mbLAKrsY

Pretty pointless.

I'm like... 4 achievements away from completely finishing Fallout 3. It'll just take a few more hours to get there, I imagine.

[syntheticgerbil]

I know a lot of people here really hate them, but I'm the opposite: I love them (provided they're not really annoyingly difficult to get).

I feel the same way and try to get all of the trophies I can get in the games I own and want to finish to the fullest. I play games pretty thoroughly already, except I don't often play hard mode or do speed runs, so in a few games, I get all of the trophies for just playing how I would normally, so that's nice. The rest is just OCD telling me I might as well get them all if I'm going to have over 70%.

I despise them when they are idiotic or near impossible. Uncharted 2 has all these DLC ones online that are just way too hard. I don't think I'll ever be able to do it, which bothers me way more than it should. I don't normally like missable trophies, but it is nice to see them sometimes used to point out easter eggs or little secrets, a la Deathspank.

I also like to look at other people's achievements/trophies as well, Thunderpeel, only one or two people on my friends list are as thorough as I tend to be, but you can easily see what someone's interests are based on how much time they are putting into certain games over others. I guess that really serves no purpose to know outside of the fun of voyeurism.

I like them too, but they also sometimes become the death of me due to completionitis. I could care less about the actual gamerscore, but I admit that I fall in the so called "gamification" trap of putting in extra effort, then feeling a sense of relief/accomplishment once I hear the little blip.

Haha, "relief." I understand fully.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I know exactly what you mean. I haven't played Uncharted 2, but when achievements get into realms of Multiplayer or collecting a bazillion things, then I'm not interested. GTAIV's achievements are pretty good... until you get to the multiplayer stuff -- It's WAY too hard.

Also, the DLC had some really shitty ones, like doing all the basejumps in Gay Tony (which are really boring and crappy) or knocking 69 people off their bikes in Lost and Damned races.

That sense of "relief" is there for me, too, though, and I'd be really happy if I had a 100% completion for GTAIV + DLC... They have me by the balls! Lol.

[Erkki]

Hmm... after all the achievement-praising, I wish I had said "I do hate them" to balance things out.

But if most of you like them... remember when I was working on a new forum software? (sorry for getting some of you to try it out and then not finishing it) I was looking into if Steam/XBLA/PSN, including achievements, could be somehow integrated into a forum and found that there are plug-ins that do it for vBulletin (or was it gamerscore only..., can't remember). I'm not sure if the admins would want to install something like this though, or if the plug-ins work with Idle Thumbs' version of vBulletin.

[Erkki]

Hmm... after all the achievement-praising, I wish I had said "I do hate them" to balance things out

But if most of you like them... remember when I was working on a new forum software? (sorry for getting some of you to try it out and then not finishing it) I was looking into if Steam/XBLA/PSN, including achievements, could be somehow integrated into a forum and found that there are plug-ins that do it for vBulletin (or was it gamerscore only..., can't remember). I'm not sure if the admins would want to install something like this though, or if the plug-ins work with Idle Thumbs' version of vBulletin.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I tried to create a "Thumbs" group... but I can't find how you make groups :-/

So far we have:

• Me
  
• Jonac13
  
• patters666
  
• AkuMifune
  
• Lord Korax
  
• toblix
  
• twmacb
  
• RealNoyb
  

Come join the fun

http://www.trueachievements.com/

Edited February 2, 2011 by ThunderPeel2001

[twmac]

Done.

You will find me under twmacb.

I have just written a piece on Achievements, both for a site I am working on and on my own blog. It should go live in the next couple of weeks.

Also I am very on boosting, unless it is like that NBA achievement where you had to have a thousand people on xbox LIVE at the same time. That seems like a legitimate community effort rather than being a cheating git.

[juv3nal]

I only hate achievements when:

1) they're not hidden achievements and either the description or the title spoils a plot point that's meant to be a surprise

or 2) there's some kind of in-game power up or unlock tied to them.

I only ever actively try to get an achievement in the case of 2 despite hating that games do that. Otherwise, I don't really care about achievements except in the rare art-game where seeking out the achievements is kind of all the game there is (linger in shadows, for instance).

[JonCole]

Forgive me, I wasn't sure of the breadth of the "group"-type features... as far as I can tell, all we can do is make a shared leaderboard. I went ahead and did that for all the people you listed, Thunderpeel.

Anyone else who joins up, feel free to join the leaderboard (I believe it also works like a "wall", where you can post messages exclusive to the board).

http://www.trueachievements.com/leaderboard.aspx?leaderboardid=2483

Done.

You will find me under twmacb.

I have just written a piece on Achievements, both for a site I am working on and on my own blog. It should go live in the next couple of weeks.

Also I am very on boosting, unless it is like that NBA achievement where you had to have a thousand people on xbox LIVE at the same time. That seems like a legitimate community effort rather than being a cheating git.

Wait, I'm not sure if I was very clear on what boosting is... it's just an effort to hunt down achievements rather than just run into them in the normal course of gameplay. If two players want to boost on Halo: ODST, them might meet up and run a gamut of Firefight rounds for all of those particular achievements.

Also, in a similar vein to what you mentioned, TA is running a "viral month" where everyone gets together around viral achievements and plays together to get otherwise difficult to earn/random stuff.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Anyone else who joins up, feel free to join the leaderboard (I believe it also works like a "wall", where you can post messages exclusive to the board).

http://www.trueachievements.com/leaderboard.aspx?leaderboardid=2483

Great stuff...

Hmm. I'm dead last. We need Jake to join.

Edit: Need to add RealNoyb (I don't think anyone can add themselves). Nice to have us all in one place, even though an overall score is meaningless (and I'm not just saying that cause I'm last )

Edited February 2, 2011 by ThunderPeel2001

[Korax]

No wonder I've been getting a bunch of TA friend adds today.

And then I saw this video, and I'm not so impressed. Hmph!

tW3mbLAKrsY

Pretty pointless.

It's probably me who has all the Fallout 3 PC achievements. Yes, I will admit to using the console to get them, but if you look at my games again, you'll see that there's another entry for Fallout 3 on X360, where I got all of the achievements legitimately. I bought both versions of the game thinking that they'd be the same achievement track, found out they weren't, and figured hey, fuck it, I'm going to get my money's worth.

[ThunderPeel2001]

It's probably me who has all the Fallout 3 PC achievements. Yes, I will admit to using the console to get them, but if you look at my games again, you'll see that there's another entry for Fallout 3 on X360, where I got all of the achievements legitimately. I bought both versions of the game thinking that they'd be the same achievement track, found out they weren't, and figured hey, fuck it, I'm going to get my money's worth.

Yep, it was you. Fair enough, though

[twmac]

Wait, I'm not sure if I was very clear on what boosting is... it's just an effort to hunt down achievements rather than just run into them in the normal course of gameplay. If two players want to boost on Halo: ODST, them might meet up and run a gamut of Firefight rounds for all of those particular achievements.

Eesh, sorry dude. Like the Bible, many quotes can be manipulated for example:

'it's just an effort to hunt down achievements'

Is interpreted by many I know as 'Cheat the fuck out of a game', your definition is innocent and I understand that your version is good. But that doesn't mean that there aren't others who take this line and take it as doing stuff that means that people conglomerate and abuse multiplayer for achievements that should be hard unless everyone is collaborating.

It is like the way in which homophobes often quote the bible with the paraphrasing: 'Thou shalt not lie with a man as thou woudst with a woman'. In my mind all the Bible is saying is 'Choose your sex and go for it, you aren't allowed to shag both both; if you sleep in the same bed as woman but you love the bumming (of men) it is fine'

Your definition of boosting actually sounds like fun, as long as that involves taking on a challenge PvE and going for it.

[ThunderPeel2001]

It is like the way in which homophobes often quote the bible with the paraphrasing: 'Thou shalt not lie with a man as thou woudst with a woman'. In my mind all the Bible is saying is 'Choose your sex and go for it, you aren't allowed to shag both both; if you sleep in the same bed as woman but you love the bumming (of men) it is fine'

That's a rather bizarre interpretation, lol!