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<generator>Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/</generator><item><title><![CDATA[Achievements across the genre]]></title><link>http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/12/03/achievements-across-the-genre/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/12/03/achievements-across-the-genre/</guid><comments>http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/12/03/achievements-across-the-genre/#comments</comments><description><![CDATA[<p>Filed under: <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/category/culture/" rel="tag">Culture</a>, <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/category/game-mechanics/" rel="tag">Game mechanics</a>, <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/category/opinion/" rel="tag">Opinion</a>, <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/category/academic/" rel="tag">Academic</a></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://teamfortress2.fr/achievements.php?eng"><img hspace="4" border="1" align="top" vspace="4" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2009/12/blogs-achievements-epl-1202.jpg" /></a></div>
By now, you've likely heard of the <a href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com"><em>World of Warcraft</em></a> player who managed to fill out <a href="http://www.destructoid.com/man-beats-world-of-warcraft-156593.phtml">every single achievement in the game</a>, covering every single currently measurable objective. (If not, well, there you go.) <a href="http://biobreak.wordpress.com/">Bio Break</a> recently took the opportunity to <a href="http://biobreak.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/achieving-the-impossible/">discuss achievements as an interesting social feature in MMOs</a>, a way of building community, while <a href="http://overlypositive.com/">Overly Positive</a> took the news as incentive to expound on <a href="http://overlypositive.com/2009/12/02/the-neverending-mmo-achievement-challenge/">achievements as an alternate venue for advancement</a>. Most of the major titles out at the moment have some form of achievement system in place, ranging from <a href="http://www.warhammeronline.com"><em>Warhammer Online</em></a>'s Tome of Knowledge to <a href="http://www.cityofheroes.com"><em>City of Heroes</em></a> and its variety of badges.<br />
<br />
The problems with the system are <a href="http://biobreak.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/achieving-the-impossible/#comment-8081">brought up in the comments</a> of the above entries -- achievements can often wind up being used as a form of highly-prohibitive gating, where someone lacking the completion achievement isn't capable of getting a group to move through it. As a whole, though, it allows for people to enjoy an entirely different venue of the game, and offers motivation to perform content that would otherwise be gathering dust after a certain point. Wherever you play, achievement markers are becoming more and more ubiquitous, and the fact that <a href="http://www.destructoid.com/man-beats-world-of-warcraft-156593.phtml">clearing them out is newsworthy</a> just shows the degree to which they've permeated our consciousness and the genre.<p style="padding:5px;background:#ffffcc;border:1px solid #ffff99;clear:both;"><a href="http://massively.joystiq.com"><img src="http://massively.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gif" alt="Massively" style="float:left;padding:0 5px 5px 0;" /></a><a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/12/03/achievements-across-the-genre/">Achievements across the genre</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com">Massively</a> on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST.  Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.<br style="clear:both;"></p><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/12/03/achievements-across-the-genre/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/forward/19263005/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/12/03/achievements-across-the-genre/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a>]]></description><category>academic</category><category>achievement</category><category>achievements</category><category>city-of-heroes</category><category>city-of-villains</category><category>coh</category><category>content-gating</category><category>cov</category><category>cox</category><category>culture</category><category>game-mechanics</category><category>opinion</category><category>war</category><category>warhammer-online</category><category>world-of-warcraft</category><category>wow</category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Eliot Lefebvre]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST</pubDate></item></channel></rss>
