I'm already being talked into coming back to this game (for what... the 6th time now?) and achievements are only going to make me want to come back faster. Ugh. Let's hope my computer can stay alive.

Akanubon

He basically said himself that Achievements are basically ways to spend longer amounts of time in a game. I think that might be needed for something like Bioshock or Assassins Creed, where one run-through will suffice, but WoW? People are spending way too much time in front of it already.

RageKage

I thought WoW already had achievements in the form of large, ornate shoulder pads? ;p

fuchikoma

@Ghede: You can tell them it's not cruel when the squirrels like it.

Caseus

@KirbyMorph: Would you like some making fuck?

Silverbackne

My new goal in life is to slaughter as many squirrels as possible. My love is like a truck.

KirbyMorph

Sounds good, might even be a hint in there those points will actually be useful for in-game rewards besides an ever expanding dickhat.

cynopt

@Caseus: However, the local authorities are VERY interested. The ASPCA is holding on line one. What should I tell them?

Ghede

Me too!

LOL

"Ahh me laddies, I be making love to everything I see, just for achievements"

Bystanders: "Is he hugging haris pilton? What a shameless person."

Shocky-

@SunScramble: I can pretty much GUARANTEE Blizzard has not been logging how many squirrels you /love.

Caseus

Yes, but THE QUESTION.

Nobody asked THE QUESTION. Will these achievements be backdated, or will the last 3.5 years of my wasted life go unrecognised?

These are the worries that keep me awake at night...

SunScramble

Do know: There are a FUCK TON of achievements. That could change, but I doubt it with how much work was put into compiling such a ginormous amount of achievements (even most are NYI).

It is quite awesome, and for completionist players like myself, it will give me a nice big checklist of shit to do instead of standing in Ebon Hold/Dalaran/Orgrimmar pseudo-AFK while playing playstation.

Oh, and the rare mounts and titles and companion pets are nice. It appears to be like another form of currency, like badges/honor/tokens/etc.

Slust

This is a dream come true/worst nightmare situation for my OCD need to complete everything on my character.

Dregor

Bring those thumbs in and throw the horns like you mean it, Kaplan!

Caseus

its just another thing for WoW players to flex their e-peens over.

anddddd I shall be one of them.

willz0rz

We all know that Blizzard is not know for inventing new game mechanics. But they bring them into a state of perfection. I am planning on taking a depper look at it by the time it comes out...

Dan Paranoir

WoW. Never truly understood it, never will.

I'm standing with Yahtzee on this one.

Communist_Gamer

@Solaris79: Who cares... They aren't talking about pioneering new territory, or claiming they are innovators...

They are just adding something people like to their game.

Aex

COH has basically already done this. So has LOTRO.

Solaris79

@Slothboy: And Steam achievements, you know, the ones he mentioned earlier, also do this... Read the sentence again, he isn't crediting himself with the idea of tracking achievement progress, he is just saying lack of that function has bugged him in the past :p

Just sayin'.

Aex

@SunScramble: That depends on the achievements. Things that are already tracked (completed quests, levels, reputation, honor kills, map exploration, etc.) will be retroactively completed. Other things that aren't currently being tracked, of course, won't be able to be completed until you do them again.

Suzaku

As long as they come with fun character titles and/or pets (which I have read that they do indeed) it should be fun!

KaneTaker

"One thing that's bugged Kaplan in general about achievements in the past is that there's no gauge of how far you're progressing toward the available unlockables. "

In The Orange Box for 360 the achievements show your progress towards completion.

Just sayin'.

Slothboy

Curse my misuse of html tags.

Instead, here's more content:

I like the idea of acheivements in WoW. With 700, there's bound to be something for everyone. I wonder how many different character classes it will require to get all of them and if the acheivements carry over to your alts.

I'd love to have a Gigantique Sack.

PissedPS3Fan

[i]He told us about a friend of his who meticulously played the Avatar: The Last Airbender game strictly for the amount of points he could accrue.[/i]

Yeah, I've seen the YouTube video, and getting all the acheivements in that game is far from what I would call [i]meticulous[/i].

PissedPS3Fan

i hope things i've done will carry over to the achievements...
because i've /love'd at least 200 squirrels already!
hmm, what a coincidence!

jeszy

@SunScramble:

Regarding past efforts being accounted for, they have a section called Feats of Strength. None of them are worth any points, but there all all things that could only have been accomplished before the expansion, and with little to ZERO chance to getting them again.

You can see them on this page:
[www.mmo-champion.com]

Examples:
- Owner of Amani War Bear.
- Earned the title, Grand Marshal"." (Others exist for pretty much each old-school PvP title, as well as new Arena titles)
- Earn exalted status with the Hydraxian Waterlords. (MC RAIDERS!)
- First to 80 for all classes on the server.
- Owner of Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros.(I think there acheivments for all legendaries so far)
- Obtain a Red Qiraji Resonating Crystal. (Basically, you got to ring the AQ40 gong)

Looks like they don't track if you killed Rag, Nef, etc etc for those particular acheivements, so yes, you'll have to go 5- or 10- man them to get those measly 5 points for pre- and post-BC bosses.

jelloman581

@KirbyMorph: BERSERKER!

Mike Fahey

@Aprocalypse: Apparently I'm blind, and can't see other people who commented on it. Oops. >_<

Aprocalypse

"One thing that's bugged Kaplan in general about achievements in the past is that there's no gauge of how far you're progressing toward the available unlockables. With WoW, that won't be the case - you'll see, for example, how many squirrels you have left to love before you hit sweet success. "

After mentioning steam achievements, which have that feature? O_o

Aprocalypse

My only dread is when something glitches with one of the achievements and they come knocking for a GM. As if there weren't enough petty whiners already.

kRaSh32

My only problem with the achievement system in wow is that it seems to go on a per-character system, which kinda sucks :(
I mean.. it kinda misses the point, I mean, xbox achievements work because it shows you an amalgamation of everything you've achieved, regardless of game or whatever. WoW achievements however don't act as an amalgamation of everything you've done, its just a show of what you're character was done.. it seems a little discouraging to me, as I'm both an achievement whore and an altaholic

ANeM

@Communist_Gamer: Yahtzee's always spoken in a (slightly) positive way about WoW, so I really don't know what you mean.

@SunScramble: Meh, a lot of of the basic ones, like PvP wins and map exploration could easily be retroactively rewarded. The squirrel bit, well, your on your own there.

@ANeM: I would hope it doesn't work like that! Why would they do that? Achievements being separate for each character would be silly! I doubt they'd do something that dumb.

FalconMbuster

Sounds like just a bunch more grinding bullshit that comes with well.. any MMO.

Can't MMO developers think of a better way to keep a player base without this constant grind?

Camon

@Communist_Gamer: It's a pretty simple concept. Games are just a series of goals. There are long term goals and short term goals. Adding achievements to you game is just a fun way of adding interesting side goals, some which are long term, and some which are short term.

In a game like Team Fortress 2, you are constantly playing round by round, so the game experience consists of mostly short term goals (i.e.: win the round, win the match, cap the point/flag, etc.)... Adding achievements allows players to experience long term goals on top of the short term goals, that they can simultaneously work toward.

While it might seem pointless to want to unlock achievements and spend time a lot of time working towards it, its really no different than any other objective in any game. Sure, its not going to mean anything in the greater scheme of life, but neither is beating/winning any game. Games need some sort of objective/goal to be fun. Achievements are just another form of objective that players can work toward.

Yokai

He appears to be feigning enthusiasm in the picture.

Also, some achievements negatively affect gameplay in an fps. The same thing could happen in an MMORPG, with too many people trying to do the same thing.

Capitalist_Bagel

Will they have an achievement for flirting with a certain number of women that are actually played by men achievement.

The dude looks like a lady achievement (and with blizzard and activision merging they might be able to get the song to play when you hit it)

onepoker

My biggest achievement from wow was being able to walk away without ever reaching level 70. But it pulls at me I still pay my damn subscription because I don't want to lose my dude.

If they really want to piss off the community they could make begging achievements. If you get someone to give you one gold piece without anything in return you get the I just took the cookie without giving up the nookie achievement.

onepoker

@Communist_Gamer: He actually said in one of his rants he liked it, he just didn't like the fact of how much of a timesink mmorpgs end up requiring.

belo

I still prefer to see this more like a character journal than some kind of epeen contest. WAR's Tome of Knowledge is probably closer to what I want, but Blizz's implementation could still be fun.

BossMonk

@KaneTaker: Yeah, this is what I'm really hopeing to hear more about. I don't expect too much and I know the score you get from the achivements are just for bragging rights, but I'm really hopeing they toss in some cool little vanity things like titles, pets, and the occasional tabard for getting/unlocking them.

Cameroo

Achievements are an alternative thing for people to do. Not everyone enjoys raiding high level dungeons, or running arena at 2200 ratings. That's why there are also tiered achievements. The Arena Achievements are awarded new ranks at 1550, 1800, 2000 and 2200 ratings for the people who care about them.

Blizzard should be worried about some of them though, there's one that could cause potential group dissent "Being the last man standing in a 5v5" could create all kinds of commotion if people let their allies die just to get it :P.

Ladi

"I kissed a squirrel, and I liked it. . ."

ggodo