I have no shame in admitting that I enjoy achievements. I like these extra little goals that players can work towards, and while I don’t spend ALL of my time hunting them down, I like the fact that it’s just one more aspect that’s been added to games to give them another dynamic. When I get to a ‘what do I want to do today’ phase of my gaming I’ll typically spend a little time working through a few of the easier achievements while I figure out what I want to do for the ‘bulk’ of my play time. As I’ve already mentioned (numerous) times before, I’m one of those gamers that doesn’t like to do one single thing day in and day out, I switch around a lot. One day I’ll do nothing but crafting and then another I’ll run through old quests, and yet another I’ll spend hunting down appearance gear. It’s great.
It’s easy to work on exploration achievements while I’m hunting down shinies, so that’s what I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been looking up some collection quests (mostly tomes) where I’ve only needed one or two pieces, and wandering around for hours hunting down those elusive question marks and fluttering pages. Exciting? Well, that depends on how you like to spend your time. No, it’s not really that exciting, there’s no real fear of death or being swarmed by mobs when I’m wandering through a lower level zone, but it’s still fun.
Yeah, things are a little quiet game-wise this week (and this will continue into next week) as I work on my Beckett deadlines. After the 5th you can expect posts to move back to their regular scheduled program *grins* I’m sure everyone is just super excited about that. Well, ok maybe just me.
In the mean time, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, and I’ll see you in Norrath (and numerous other places).
Achievements are just like any other tool available to designers. They are not good or bad in themselves, it is all about how they are used. Plus, just like raids, collection quest, and skirmishes, some players will fixate on them and grind until any fun is completely gone.
Personally I treat achievements, deeds, titles, collections, etc. similarly to Stargrace. They are nice sidelines to add a little variety, but no more than that. I get most of my achievements (here referring to console as well) by accident, those are the best kind.
I hate achievements. Enough said. I wrote gazillions of pages why achievements are bad for gamers and the games in the long run and are usually cheap fake content or silly to-do tasks for often rather questionable carrot rewards.
There is a nice side of achievements, no doubt, but the devil always starts out innocent and cute! :)
I just saw your post over at nomadic gamer about trying out EVE again. Any time you’re on there, if you need help with anything, you can shoot me a convo –I’m “Boaz Netopalis” there.
Assuming you aren’t out getting all your exploration achievements in EQ2 instead ;-)
Achievements are great for when you want to prevent burnout, and do something different once in a while. I like to think of myself as an achievement junkie, but not to the degree of an OCD.