Comments on: Why your game turns me off

By: AFK - April 5 « Bio Break

AFK - April 5 « Bio Break — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:47:46 +0000

[...] over at KTR tells us exactly “Why Your Game Turns Me Off” – and while I don’t fully agree with his point about achievements, most of this is [...]

By: Tesh

Tesh — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:56:16 +0000

Julian, that’s a bookmark for reference. Either for future discussion or for when I get to show it to some MMO devs. It’s a great list, thanks for writing it up.

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:00:44 +0000

I think the best kind of achievements (for my taste) are the ones that just happen and you get as you’re doing something else.

Congratulations, you just killed your millionth kobold. Here’s your commemorative keychain. See that kind of thing, I don’t mind. I even like. Happened as I was doing something else.

I do take exception to the purposeful breeding of OCD-ness in gamers, first by providing a list of achievements, and second to make damn sure they are either cosmetic, or they provide a bonus so miserable that you might as well not get it (see: killing 720 or so wyrmythingamajigs in Angmar for a microscopical morale increase).

That’s just being a dick.

By: foolsage

foolsage — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:21:01 +0000

I do have slightly mixed feelings about achievements… in theory, they can provide incentive to explore, since you know there’s something out there. This only works if the journey to the achievement is in itself interesting, as opposed to a pointless grind, and if the achievement has some merit or application besides feeding your OCD. E.g. titles in CoX can be fun to pursue, and the WAR Tome of Knowledge was sometimes fun to muck about with. I do agree though that achievements for their own sake aren’t content, and if they require grinding, they’re really annoying.

As for the rest… damned straight!

By: Thallian

Thallian — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:28:40 +0000

this pretty much sums up my gripes about just about every MMO in existence. Thank Julian for helping my inner grumpy old man to vent. ;)

By: warcabbit

warcabbit — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:30:40 +0000

… Yeah, well. War Walls suck, but they seem to be a limit of the design.

… soooooooo. Architect is coming live next weekend or so. Want an invite back in?

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:59:26 +0000

Is that a bookmark for good or evil?

By: Tesh

Tesh — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:11:30 +0000

*bookmarks*