Loading... Achievement Overload

Welcome to the 1,116th Edition of Loading...

Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news and commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

Instances, raids, and epic loot have all become a staple of today's MMOs. But no single feature has taken this category by storm like achievements. Today's newsletter looks at the many forms achievements take, some traditional, some XBLA style, and some fairly obscure. We'll also look at the downside of achievement overload and what might be done to slow down the rat race in Loading... Achievement Overload.

Need more newsletter? Play World of Warcraft? Jay "Medeor" Johnson's weekly WoW newsletter "The Overpull" comes out every Tuesday and keeps you entertained and informed on all the latest developments in WoW. Sign up!

The Pulse

You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).

Here's today's top 5 Pulse results for today:

World of Warcraft EverQuest 2 Age of Conan Aion (UP 1) EVE Online (UP 1)

Biggest Movers today :

Guild Wars (down 5 to #18) City of Heroes (UP 4 to #19) Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (down 2) Recent MMO Releases 6/24 - Age of Conan Update 5: Gangs of Tarantia 6/25 - WAR "Land of the Dead" 6/30 - City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary 6/30 - Lord of the Rings Online Book 8 7/7 - Darkfall Player Housing Expansion 7/13 - Darkfall NA launch

Important Dates

7/17 - 7/19- Aion Beta Weekend 7/23 - 7/26 - San Diego Comic Con '09 Upcoming Releases Late July - FFXI "Moogle Kupo d'Etat" Addon (release date) 8/25 - CrimeCraft (release date) 9/1 - Champions Online (release date) 9/22 - Aion (release date) Early 2010 - APB

Loading... Daily

Sardu used a term I hadn't heard before during a meeting last night - "completionists." Unabashed believers in the task of completing for the sake of completion. I like the term, and I think it's a fairly new concept, because only recently have games let you in on the painful little secret of how much you still have left to achieve before you, without qualification, have mastered the game... at least until the next update.

Ever since game developers realized that the achiever side of Bartle's taxonomy was where the mainstream money is at, we've been given a frightening amount of things to achieve. The Xbox, which started this whole mess with XBLA achievements, enjoys increased sales of even its most terrible games just so that gamers can grab the easy achievement points at the beginning of the game. This concept alone is probably keeping game rental services afloat these days.

MMOGs have done their share, of course. The most blatant example, besides the traditional implementations of an achievement system in WoW and now EQ2, is the ever escalating pursuit of the purples in World of Warcraft, but the rat race started long before WoW with the arguably much more hardcore epics of EQ fame. More hardcore yet is the unrestricted PvP looting of Darkfall, where (thanks to player housing in the just-announced expansion) you have a place to show off your trophies. Of course, Darkfall player housing has its own overarching achievement - your clan can conquer entire villages, which doesn't change ownership of the houses themselves but puts the tax revenue in your clan's pocket.

But items and factional ownership are no longer your only way to make a show of your efforts. Warhammer Online and sundry other games tried to fuse the concept of achievements with an explorer mindset - your Tome of Knowledge notes not only how many squigs you've done in but where you've been and what you've done, offering up titles and more with your unlocks. Champions Online takes that concept (and the "badges" system of its predecessor, City of Heroes) one step further, offering players new costume pieces and special quests based on the perks they've achieved.

For all of their inherent appeal, achievements have one major disadvantage - they're a one way street, and you'll never catch up to someone equally completionist that started before you. As games grow bigger and time wears on, the gap widens, and completionist newcomers are punished simply for coming late to the party. I'd argue that this, along with the race to server firsts (yet another achievement), contribute in large part to the launch day mentality that cancels out one of the biggest factors in World of Warcrafts ascent - a constant stream of new players.

So what's the answer? I'm not sure. Maybe a slow inflation of achievement point values from the time of the achievement's creation, maybe more "limited time only" achievements that keep the overall number of achievements managable, or a herculean commitment to an achievement cap that takes, say, 300 hours to achieve, no matter how many achievements are in the game. Maybe I'm going about this wrong and that achievement points are really more like the veteran rewards - bonuses for time well played.

What say you? Are achievements full of awesome sauce or burnout potential? What's the craziest thing you've ever done for achievement points? Share in the Loading... forum, or feel free to email me!

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our Aion Forum

13 ways to kick start your Aion experience

Continuing our Aion theme...

Now
that Aion's most recent beta preview weekend is over, those of you
who've had a chance to get your hands on the game have gathered in our
Aion forum to share your newbie gameplay tips. Ethec started things
with Ten Ton Hammer's 13 Things to Know Before Playing Aion. Our community members have added some tips of their own.

If you've played Aion, come share your newbie tips. If you've yet to play but you plant to (whether in beta or at launch), you'll want to bookmark this thread.

==============================
Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread

"In
your first 10 levels all items players sell in their stores tend to be
quest rewards (or PvE loot), so avoid the player stores and don't waste
money on goods you will eventually get."

- Metal
==============================

Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? Tell us!

4 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 24 in July! 789 in 2009!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Exclusive Articles:

Aion Class Preview - The Chanter
Like many other aspects of Aion, the Chanter class blends just enough familiar elements from previous MMOs for players to feel completely at home when stepping into the role while offering plenty of unique features to keep things fresh and interesting. The net result is a priest class that functions both as rugged melee fighter and excellent support class all wrapped into one neat package. To help give players a better understanding of what sets the Chanter apart from the crowd, we’ve put together a brief overview of things you should know. World of Warcraft: Druid Theorycrafting - An Introduction
The World of Warcraft has ushered in a ton of new players to the MMO world and many of them it seems have way too much time on their hands. The introduction of wide scale "Theorycrafting" or in laymans terms "The neverending slicing of the gnats ass into the thinnest layer possible" has shed new light on gameplay mechanics and the numbers behind the pretty spell graphics. Does this level of obsessive disection of the game leave you scratching your head? Join Medawky this week as he lays out a plan to make sense of all the making sense. This is the first of a multi-part series that will distill the essense of the debates, theories and number crunching once and for all (or at least until the next patch). World of Warcraft: Using the Blizzard Equipment Manager
This past week a raider that plays with our very own Byron “Messiah”
Mudry was overheard complaining that they did not like having to
manually switch pieces of gear when they switched talent specs. Many
of the players there said, “Well, use the equipment manager.” To
which the raider responded, “Huh?” So our very own Messiah thought
that it was about time for a guide for all those players that never
read the patch notes or never figured out how to use the Blizzard
Equipment manager that was added in Patch 3.1.2. Comic: Geeked - "The Horse is Dead, Jim"
Ten Ton Hammer's very own satirical webcomic on all things geek-related is here with a look at the age old discussion of what game stole what from what other game... and just who the heck cares.

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to:

Champions Online Power Set Interview - Dual Blades, Single Blade, Fighting Claws and Unarmed Aion Class Preview - The Chanter The Dilemma of Level vs Skill - How Old Became New Again EVE Online: Sins of a Solar Spymaster #18 - Defending Allah's Sacred Domains 13 Things to Know Before Playing Aion World of Warcraft: Using the Blizzard Equipment Manager Gangland Gankage - A CrimeCraft Hands-On Preview Basic Primer to World of Warcraft Machinima Age of Conan Game Update 5 Funcom Interview Ten Ton Hammer E3 2009 Awards

Real World News - We couldn't make this stuff up if we tried:

Police cadet in uniform breaks into friend's house, steals PlayStation
"Commandeering for official use" only goes so far. Man dies in suburbs, no one notices
Hurray for today's cheerfully existential take on the problems of modern man. Inmate demands Thor's Hammer
Sadly, the ability to smite your enemies with thunder doesn't fit with the Utah penal code.

Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team