08 Aug, 2012, Exodus wrote in the 1st comment:
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I was digging through old folders and found a bunch of ideas I had written down and never gotten around to developing. One of the ideas was an achievement system.While relatively easy to create, I've been mulling around on how best to tie them to attributes in a character data structure. In DIKU/SMAUG bases, like many others, this data is not readily available in a dynamic sense and has to be called directly. This is a bit of a pain as it leaves more things that need to be updated if fields in the char structure change.

Currently, what I have written is decent, but leads to a few issues when installing on an active game with a player base. Namely, once turned on, old characters log in and get spammed with achievements they have earned prior to the system being added. I suppose I could make an NPC that allows them to unlock achievements manually, but that's a bit tedious.

So with that in mind, has anyone created such a system? If so, how does it work? What rewards do you give? Are there any special rewards aside from the typical quest points or gold? A title perhaps, or a special item/ability?
08 Aug, 2012, Tyche wrote in the 2nd comment:
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What is an achievement system?
08 Aug, 2012, Exodus wrote in the 3rd comment:
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A system that rewards a thing done successfully, typically by effort, courage, or skill.
Example:

Slay 1,000 monsters
Reward 500 gold, 5 quest points

Bragging rights, for lack of a better term.
08 Aug, 2012, Alathon wrote in the 4th comment:
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Exodus said:
Currently, what I have written is decent, but leads to a few issues when installing on an active game with a player base. Namely, once turned on, old characters log in and get spammed with achievements they have earned prior to the system being added. I suppose I could make an NPC that allows them to unlock achievements manually, but that's a bit tedious.


I would probably save a version-number of a character when they log out, if you're planning to do changes that cause things like this (Or may break stuff). You could then
check for a previous version, and make sure to mute the achievement spam in that instance. You could of course just make it a flag for this particular thing, but tying a number
to things tends to have application for other stuff you might do, that might also break old saves.

As for achievements, in most games they're purely aesthetic. So you'll get titles, pet NPCs that don't advance your character power, etc. Its quite uncommon for achievements to
reward things you can actually use in the game itself (Such as your example of gold and quest points), although it may work well for you depending on the setting. The reasoning being
that if they don't reward in-game power, you can add a gazillion-million of them. And they work quite well, because most people love micro-improvements, and an improvement to bragging-rights
or similar is for most people just as good as an improvement in power in a game.

Although, personally, I never really got hooked on doing stuff simply to unlock an achievement.
08 Aug, 2012, Kline wrote in the 5th comment:
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I prefer the term "Nerd Points".

Alathon said:
Although, personally, I never really got hooked on doing stuff simply to unlock an achievement.

I do. Achievements were the end-game for me when I played WoW. After spending two expansions doing "hardcore" raiding, beating my head against that brick wall with a guild to learn the mechanics, get it down, bask in the joy of that kill and then….farm it until a new boss was created, I needed to find something different to keep the game entertaining. The same thing happened to me with Diablo III the moment I beat Inferno Diablo – what more was there to do? Grind loot or gold hoping to upgrade? For what? There is no PVP and no other content to beat except to earn "nerd points". Some are simply markers of exploring a game such as "Get a Haircut" or "Explore Zone XYZ" but others can be as much of a testament to skill as a PVP title / trophy. Things like beating a boss by intentionally handicapping yourself to ignore an easy to use mechanic, or using little to no gear, or no healing, etc. I find earning nerd points to be a fun and challenging distraction in most games.
08 Aug, 2012, Hades_Kane wrote in the 6th comment:
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We have what I call a "psuedo" account system. I've never liked traditional account systems, so we worked out something where the account system is completely optional. You still login directly with your characters, but have an account command that allows you to access/change things on the account from any character on the account itself.

I eventually intend on making it to where you may also either login directly with your account and go from there, or more likely, able to reference an account in character creation.

Where this comes into play is one of the account values we have is basically an achievement value. I think we have it set to something like 100 open values. As of currently, this doesn't do anything, but it's ground work to allow achievements, more specifically on an account basis. The reason for this is things like once we have the playable storyline worked all the way through, there will be an account achievement for having played through the storyline, along with achievements for what "path" you followed (generally, this will be alignment based, although there will likely be additional achievements for specific class and race paths as well). The plan is, once you unlock these achievements, then any new character on the account will also count for having done these things (optionally). So play through as a "dark" Human Thief once and get to certain points in the story, any other characters matching one of those criteria will have the option of skipping those parts of the story.

The reason for the likely (partial) integration into the login/creation sequence will be the (probable) eventual unlocking of new classes, races, or other options in character creation that isn't available during the first play through. Specific achievements might unlock certain specifics in character creation, like say you "complete" the game or max or whatever with the Half-Esper race, then you may have the chance to select "Esper" at creation. There may be some things that can be "spent" in creation and would have to be re-earned to re-use again, while some other things would be unlocked completely.

The mindset behind this is for several reasons. Like some others here, I believe that any sort of achievement system (particularly if those achievements can be shared) will act as bragging rights and give players an alternate method of advancement or competition to strive for that's separate from the "main" game. I have a staff member asking about leaderboards as well for similar reasons that we may eventually work out as well. Aside from that, it also adds another dimension to "end-game" content, as gaining achievements for re-use on new characters will likely both keep older/higher characters busy, but will also encourage people to create new characters and keep the cycle of play going. I don't like "remort" systems, so this is another way to kind of "reset" play with some advantage or edge to people who have maxed the game. It also allows more "rare" content such as prestige classes or races without any sort of application process, so it's open to everyone, but due to different bits of content having different prerequisite criteria, things like that should be somewhat balanced as far as how much of it actually appears in game. Running around as a full blooded Esper would also likely carry with it, in of itself, a bit of bragging rights because of the relative rarity of it, and the accomplishment of what it may have taken to earn it.

Thus far, the extent of our "rewards" brainstorm for the achievement system has to do with unlockables for character creation, we haven't considered much as far as immediate rewards, but it may be something to consider as well. There's certainly a lot that can be done, and I think it's a good thing to push toward.
08 Aug, 2012, arholly wrote in the 7th comment:
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Sounds like something I am working on for my mud too. I am working (or going to) on an account point system where access to anything but the common Vampire Clans (Cam-7 for example), would require you to have the points to buy an uncommon or rare clan type. I'm still working out the details of the system, but that is going to be how I control there not being 100 daughters of cacophany or something silly like that.
09 Aug, 2012, Exodus wrote in the 8th comment:
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Hades_Kane said:
Where this comes into play is one of the account values we have is basically an achievement value.

We have an account system as well and I had a similar thought. It makes sense to reward individual character accomplishments, but as players progress, they tend to want to try out new ways to play the game - new race/class combo and such. I rather like the idea that some achievements are tied to the character, but others could be tied to the account and benefit all of the characters associated with it.

I do find it interesting that you tie achievements with character creation in particular. Our system allows the typical remort type system with 3 classes as well as epic levels. For more variety to those that want to grind out all the levels, they can create their own custom class based on the previous ones they have chosen using a pool of points that allow customizing attributes and skill groups. I think you're on the right track though, as achievements tied with character creation can lead to a lot of replayability. It would be neat to have achievements that could possibly yield more "creation points" or give access to new customization options for their characters, superficial as they may be.
09 Aug, 2012, KaVir wrote in the 9th comment:
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From an implementation perspective, an achievement is basically the same as a one-shot quest - so if you've got a quest system that tracks which quests you've completed, you can use that same system for tracking achivements.

A more interesting question IMO is how to represent the achievements. I've been thinking of adding graphical icons to the players' website profiles, but I'm still trying to decide how the layout should look. But as an example, these are the profiles of some players who took part in a recent PK tournament: First place, second place and participant. Their achievements are indicated by a small icon below their description, you can hover over it to view the details.

As I said, I'm not happy with the layout, but I like the concept and would like to expand it. I think it would be kind of cool to have a list of achievement icons on your profile.
09 Aug, 2012, quixadhal wrote in the 10th comment:
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Many games have achivements which are also parts of meta-achivements.

For example, there may be achivements for killing 10 bears, and another for 100, and another for 1000. You might also have similar ones for pigs, chickens, and turtles. If you get get the "kill 10" one for all the types of critters, you get a meta-achivement for killing 10 of every critter.

Of course, you can make achivements for anything. Exploring 50% of the world map, doing a whole series of quests, talking to 20 different players, looting 1M gold, anything you can think of tracking the data for. :)
09 Aug, 2012, Alathon wrote in the 11th comment:
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KaVir said:
A more interesting question IMO is how to represent the achievements. I've been thinking of adding graphical icons to the players' website profiles, but I'm still trying to decide how the layout should look. But as an example, these are the profiles of some players who took part in a recent PK tournament: First place, second place and participant. Their achievements are indicated by a small icon below their description, you can hover over it to view the details.

As I said, I'm not happy with the layout, but I like the concept and would like to expand it. I think it would be kind of cool to have a list of achievement icons on your profile.


If you ignore the horrible HTML, and the fact that I don't particularly like the look of the website itself, I think the concept here is decent: A list of top achievers, a stream of recently earned achievements (Called medals here), and a list of all achievements available. Letting your players squabble over being the best achiever is a pretty decent incentive for some people.

I also do like the 'Feats of Strength' concept from World of Warcraft - Achievements which are based on you being around and doing something, at a particular time in the game. Such as killing the end-boss of the game, back around the time the first expansion came about. Or being one of the first to get a certain class up to max level. Or being around for a certain event. Although I don't think those should factor into any sort of 'score' or competetive table of achievers, because that'd skewer things. They're more a sort of 'Yeah, I was around back then!' badge.
09 Aug, 2012, Ssolvarain wrote in the 12th comment:
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Alathon said:
Letting your players squabble over being the best achiever is a pretty decent incentive for some people.


This goes hand in hand with the end-game content we were discussing in another thread. Some people will hound achievements, so putting in something as simple as "kill 100 mobs" provides incentive to play after level X without actually having to add additional content.
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