Sep 15, 2011

Posted by in Blue Milk & Cereal | 27 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You Want Achievements In TOR?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Ah, achievements. They’ve become all the rage in the gaming community, and it doesn’t look like they’re going away any time soon.

Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and others have been able to increase games’ replayability with them. MMO games such as World of Warcraft has turned them into a huge meta-game, and may even grant in-game rewards such as titles or mounts. Steam has used these for games you purchase through them. Heck, even social apps like Gowalla allow you to earn them. Everywhere you look, achievements are there!

So the question is, would you want them to become a part of Star Wars: The Old Republic? BioWare has stated they like achievements and want them, but they may not be in for launch.

Personally, I’m torn. If you were to see my now out-dated Paladin from World of Warcraft, you’d see I racked up over 10,000 achievement points. On Xbox Live, I’m sitting at just under 15,000. I’m usually the guy who sits on the achievement screen to figure out what one I could go for today, or slowly work towards.

The biggest drawback I saw with them was that there never seemed to be any use for the points. Sure, in WoW by completing various achievements, we could gain a title, a mount, a pet, or something non-essential to playing. Other than that, it was just a little contest with friends to see who had more. They really just gave me something to do, when I had nothing to do.

In an MMO, problems can arise when it’s something that needs to be accomplished as a group, typically in a raid environment. If your group didn’t get awarded the achievement, everyone would want to die and start over. Sort of takes the fun out of playing the actual game… or does it?

While we still wait for BioWare to put the finishing touches on TOR, we can still hope that we’ll see them. Or pray that achievements will have no place in the game.

Which side of the achievement fence are you on? Do you want achievement points in the game, or prefer they’re not there? If you want achievements, would you want solo, group, or a mixed bag of achievements?

Do you want to see achievements in TOR?

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  1. Well, I think achievements in games are an awesome feature. Many people tend to play games because they want to “finish” them. Lets say WoW, for example. Many people just want to get to max lvl (85 atm) and brag about it. With achievements you really know if they completed content, if they like lore, doing lots of quests… And, most importantly, achievements make you want to explore the world, do every quest posible even when it reports no exp, just for the lore, or to explore areas you didn’t level in and now you outleveled.

  2. I would want them, if gives you something else you can work on when you hit level cap.

  3. I always appreciate a blue milk post that gets me thinking about SWTOR early. So, I would like to see them but only if the resulting titles and rewards can be integrated into the lore.
    I worry its a sign of lack of re-playability if all a person can think of is to run around and kill X of one creature to see if there is a hidden achievement.

  4. Definitely yes, would love for it to be tied in with new titles aswell.

  5. I’m not big on achievements, particularly because the points you earn for them mean nothing at all. I do like the fact that they exist, though.

    I definitely want them in the game, even though I don’t chase them down. In WoW for instance, the only achievements I cared about were Going Down, and Make Love Not Warcraft. Why? I have no idea, I just liked getting those on the first toon that happened to get them and decided that all of my toons had to have them.

    I like achievements as a badge system, where you can see what things people have accomplished and what they haven’t. The points version of it is the part that I just really don’t care for. If you could spend them, or if they worked as a sort of experience bar that gave you certain benefits at various point levels, then I would actually chase achievements. If it turns out to be like it is in WoW, then I’ll get the ones I happen to stumble across, the ones that offer rewards I might care about, or ones that are just plain fun to do, but otherwise I can do without them.

  6. I liked the fact that in Fable, you could use your reputation points to purchase new titles. I always thought that it would be cool if you could use your WOW reputation points for the same thing. They wouldn’t be the real prestigious titles, but silly things like “Chicken Chaser” or things that fit your RP persona, like “Nightblade” or something.

  7. I say for the most part yes. They help to bring color to the game and give players something to work towards when they want to take a break from leveling and such.

    The only flip side I could see is achievements associated with group content. Then you get people who are only there to get a certain achievement and as soon as they achieve it, they’re gone. Also this ties into the elitist raiding environment you see in the more established MMORPG’s, where you get raids becoming the thing for only hardcore gamers that excludes anyone else trying to join in. (I.E. not the right gear, people not willing to take the time to go through the lower raids for someone because they only want the high end raids, and those that don’t want to take the time to teach new players.) It’s these type of elitist raiders who will get to be the only ones who get the high end achievements which no one else will ever be able to achieve because they never get the chance to go for those achivements.

    so there’s plus’s and minus’s to an achievement system.

    • I agree and have seen this happen. However, this is just reason #214 why I think players need to make friends in game, find appropriate guilds and stay far far away from PUGs. This is the MMO where I will avoid PUGs at all costs.

  8. I chose yes just because I know how much a lot of people I played with loved working towards them in WoW. I don’t personally care for them just because I don’t have enough time to play to get bored and try for them. I do know though that two of my guildies did the whole Insanity thing in WoW (not sure what it was called), and had to devote more hours a day to WoW than they did real life and thats just not my thing.

  9. HELL YES!!! I want achievements, and i love WoWs system for them only problem with WoWs system is that it hurts replayability. I druid with a ton of achievements so now i never really want to or would ever change him from being my main. So just need make them account wide system then doesnt matter which character i play.

    (rly hope TOR has an account wide system)

  10. I do remember reading a dev post or video interview where they stated there will be server first type achievements.

    • I thought I read that there would not be. Something along the lines of, “We put in so much time and effort on the story, we don’t want to reward people for skipping it”. Was a long time ago though so who knows if that has changed.

  11. HELL to the no I don’t want achievements on TOR! They are nothing but time sinks that give nothing (in comparison to the time wasted in return). Then you get these elitist people who form groups for Flashpoints & Operations that are using achievements as a measuring stick for how “good” you are (killing squirrels & bunnies, exploring makes me good? I think you get my point here).

  12. I don’t care, sure put them in, but I am not going to try to get them. I will play the game explore the world. I feel the Codex is TORs form of “Achievements”. Filling out my knowledge of the different worlds and the creatures on those worlds. If they put in “Achievements” I am sure I will pick some up. I will not actively try to get them.

  13. Jason Taylor says:

    I voted yes, but only if they stay within lore. I mean that the achievements equal a title or the quest line to get an achievement fits Star Wars lore, and not kill x number of something to get an achievement.

  14. ScytheNoire says:

    Definitely yes. It’s a major factor in giving players something to do at cap. I love them.

  15. Some of the most fun I had in WoW was walking around with “the Insane” title back when i played a couple years ago.

  16. I personally feel that achievements are a double edged sword. They allow those who have nothing to do to have something. On the other hand there are those who would brag about ‘X’ Achievement over people and get a big head. I don’t think all achievements are bad mind you, but I think some are worth while than others. In MMO’s specifically Raid achievements are good since they allow people to see where you’ve been and what you’ve done. I personally call them Pug passes since in WoW if you don’t have X achievement you wouldn’t get an invite to a particular raid or Rated BG. Now if bioware intends to add achievements I think they should be careful with there implementation.

  17. Would like them yes. Just not attached to Flashpoints or Operations. Hate anything that gives people a way to make snap judgments about a persons skill.

    • well honestly i disagree. i think it’s ok if ppl asks you to show some “proof” of skill. anyway if you don;t have some certain achievements, you can always organize a group yourself, and get it.

      i think every mmo’s player know how frustrating it is when u spend a xx time to organize a group of players that fails on 1st boss….

      • I disagree in the most part here as someone who has spent time in raids etc in wow and had the whole your not good enough to join us cause you havent got an achieve on a certain char, achievements dont mean squat when it comes to skill. Ive played with ppl that have never had the achieve spend 2 mins explaining the tacs and 1 shot a boss and on the other hand ive had players that have the achievements cause wipe after wipe cause they dont have the skill to cope or instinct to move when needed etc and they only had the achieve cause they got lucky or carried from a guild.

        Basically im saying achievements dont prove skill at all and lack of dont prove lack of skill. However some achievements based around giving things to do or some that are fun are fine imo, maybe make it so you cant link achieves or just the points that way it will stop all the elitist junk we had to put up with in wow.

      • i didn’t say that achievements means skill, and lack of achievements means u don’t have one. also agree with u on pve achievements , and in wow they basically meant nothing. tho in pvp they could say how well player preformed.

        i am just saying that is good to have some sort of reliable proof of something, never said you should judge player only on his achievements.

  18. I think that getting an achievement for a flash point is good but I don’t want anything else with it. Achievements made everything to elitist in WoW f.ex, I played in a very good guild for around 6 years and got lots of achivemtns but to me they are just hollow candy to make players do the same crap again just to get those elusive 10p.
    Also, pre-achievement, pretty much anyone could get into a group after showing at least some blue/epic items. If they sucked, you kicked them, end of story. But in WoW today u don’t even get a chance.

    Implement achievements in a few years but not at release.

  19. I would want them, if they’re not linkable and needed to complete content before completing the content.

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