I don't often link to comments I make on other people's blogs, but Domino, EQ2's Tradeskill dev, has an interesting post on the relative value of accomplishments. She suggests that one of the reasons why groups of players get angry about stuff that is given to other groups (e.g. established raiders complaining about nerfs for entry level raiders) is the lack of a formal hierarchy for accomplishments. With explicitly stated standards for, say, slaying dragons versus interior decoratating, Domino believes that we could avoid "endless debate over whether the MMO's rewards are "fair"."
Personally, I think the debates are caused by the concept Tobold proposed; players engaged in a tug of war to convince developers to make a game we want because we can't afford to develop the AAA MMORPG of our own. Still, it's an interesting question, and my comments won't make sense out of context, so I'll just post the link and call it a day.
At the same time, a blanket "Cleared Naxx" achievement is the core of complaining about nerfed raids. Those who cleared it "back in the day" whine about that achievement being "devalued" when Naxx changes.
ReplyDeleteYou either wind up with a heirarchy of achievements that change when the underlying circumstances for achieving them change (say an "Old Naxx" achievement and a "New Naxx" achievement), which can be a LOT of extra work and new achievements for each patch day, or you tell players to suck it up and just play the friggin' game, stop worrying about your online ego, and get rid of achievements.
I'd be okay with ambiguity. Dev sanctioned guidelines and gamerscore would confront a lot of players with the fact that their achievements either suck or are mediocre compared to others. No one plays a game to suck at it for very long, and if players soon see they have little hope of being more than scrubs, they'll probably ditch the achievement system or the game.
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