Some of you may or may not know this about me, but i’m kind of a sucker for Achievements. So when I see things like this:
It drives me a little batty. I’ve sunk over 400 hours into Civ V and only got about 1/3 of the achievements there? FFFFFFFFFF-
I realize that a decent number of those are just “Win with X Civilization” which, in spite of the many hours i’ve played I still haven’t managed to do with all of them. (Seriously, one game can last 10 hours without even being that big). Of course, there are some games where i’m just like “Yeah, fuck that” with achievements. World of Warcraft is one of them… in a way. See, WoW has achieves for EVERYTHING. If you can make your character do the hokey pokey in all the bathrooms on Azeroth, I bet there’s an achievement for that. And while that particular achieve isn’t difficult (or outside my desire for nerd points) some of them I have long since become at peace with the fact that I’ll never get.
Like the PvP achievements.
I don’t mind some PvP, but in general it’s just not my thing. So you’ll almost certainly never see me get some of the Arena Master achievements or anything like that. But all that aside, let me show you one that has driven me bonkers for SO LONG and it just gnaws at me sometimes.
For those of you who don’t recognize this screen, it’s from Dragon Age: Origins. (And if you haven’t played that then WHAT ARE YOU DOING GO BUY IT OMG) I’ve had this game for like 5 years, and there’s still 5 achievements that escape me. And there’s a modest chance they will ALWAYS elude me because they are bloody awful achievements. One of them has to do with making 10 successful intimidate checks and idk, it’s just weird for me to play that kind of character. (And yet I can play a RIDICULOUSLY Dark Side Sith in SWTOR who would lightning a child if they got in the way… I’m weird, I know). Another one has to do with the absolutely godawful Darkspawn Chronicles DLC. And man… one playthrough of that was more than enough. It was buggy as shit and just absolutely awful. Plus I had to go through and KILL ALL MY COMPANIONS FROM THE GAME. Like WTF is that all about? Screw that. I’ve spent so many hours loving and laughing with all these characters, and this one DLC wants me to go slaughter them all? Just for a few nerd points?
…
gaming Identity 
See, I just hate cheevs full stop. Most of the time I ignore them. I’m all “oh, yaaay” if I get one by accident in WoW (which is not that often since I don’t PvP, don’t dungeon, and hardly log in these days). If they never existed in any game I would probably be a happier person.
But I do feel your pain. Even if I *did* care about cheevs there are some I would never get because there’s no way I’m going to SLAUGHTER ALL MY FRIENDS in a game just because I want a token icon-thingy. I’m pissed the designers even think I might.
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I don’t hate achieves at all. I’m strangely drawn to them, even though I know full well that they provide NOTHING OF VALUE WHATSOEVER. It’s a really weird phenomenon.
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Nah, you’re definitely in the majority. We like to feel like we’re doing things and moving forward, even in games — they also serve to direct our gaming and/or provide purpose to tired players.
I’m just weird in that I am totally not motivated by achievements OR items, the two major elements in most recent MMOs…
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I dislike the achievements where the developers have two conflicting paths that require a second or third playthrough. If a game is good I will play it again in my own time, but not really to get an alternative achievement.
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Yeah, I hate Achievements. I really think the required Achievements for “completing” a game should be far fewer and more approachable, though I think they should still include some of the zany other woulds outside of the necessary completion path.
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