World of Warcraft Achievement System Rumored

Kotaku has the merest hint of a rumor about a possible achievement system coming with Blizzard's Wrath of the Lich King expansion. "You know what World of Warcraft players really need? Another reason not to get up out of their chair, and Blizzard might be giving that to them in the form of in-game achievements in the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. According to DeathKnight.info, players in the Wrath of the Lich King alpha can type /achievement to bring up a screen like the one above, which shows various achievements that can be performed for points, which will more than likely then go towards buying gear and such."

Comments

I'm so over Wow.

[TheGeneration]

I played for a couple of years... but man... what's the point?

It's just a giant life force sucking treadmill.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Sklyan]

I played for a couple of years... but man... what's the point? The sense of fulfillment you get from any hobby -- be it building model planes, or collecting bottle caps. Call me an existentialist, but you can step back from any aspect of life and ask "what's the point?" and you will generally find that there isn't one.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Tontoman]

Hey, if you have something negative to say, why say it? I mean, why spend the time complaining when you could have already gone and bought/downloaded another game to play? I like what Blizzard has to offer. It's new, compared to what they've done before. This in my opinion is a great add-on to the games already great story/gameplay
'Grats Blizzard, another great addon to the game! Cheers

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Moridineas]

That's true and I agree with you (I've argued the same point on slashdot before--who cares if people have fun doing it, it's up to them)

but I think the GP is referring more generally to the feeling of disillusionment/ennui? many people seem to feel after falling head over heels into WoW. I played soon after the game came out, and was very addicted. I then stopped and it was like ... crap, what I was doing, I could have done X,Y,Z etc instead. Of course I reactivated my account 2 years later, played for a couple months, and felt the same thing again, so I obviously didn't learn my lesson :-P

I've heard similar reactions from others.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[TitusC3v5]

I played for a couple of years... but man... what's the point?

Well, this may be a shot in the dark, but maybe, just maybe, people find the various grinds in the game to be...fun? Far too many people get caught up in the constant gear and leveling treadmill to really focus on what should be the goal of the game - enjoying yourself.

On a related note, this system is more or less a direct copy of LotRO's deed system. There's a running commentary on it right over over at the LotRO forums.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[silentbozo]

If I build a model plane, I can put it up on my mantle, gift it to someone, and take the skills I developed building that and put it towards other items requiring fine motor skills and and a sense of art and history.

I think someone mentioned in a post regarding WOW on a different Slashdot thread that raiding as part of an established group taught them how to manage time, coordinate with other people, and build leadership skills.

Pretty much, you get out of a hobby what you put into it. If it's just a way of killing time, then all you're going to get out of it is a lot of dead time. If your reason to play is the social dynamics (I knew people who played because their friends had moved away, and it was the regular "meetup"), then I think the test would be if these social networks survive beyond the game.

With that said, I detest games that require you to stay on the treadmill to "keep up". At least when I do work I hate during normal working hours, I get paid...

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[merreborn]

On a related note, this system is more or less a direct copy of LotRO's deed system.

That's okay, Turbine has cribbed a few features from WoW too. e.g., in their first MMO, Asheron's Call, they recently introduced a quest that's virtually indistinguishable from the various WoW deck quests (deck of warlords, deck of portals, etc. etc.). Hell, the whole LOTR UI looks a lot more like WoW than it does Turbine's previous games...

There's an awful lot of 'borrowing' in the MMO industry.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Liquidrage]

Xbox live surely predates LotRO. And I'm sure we can find something even before that. In fact, lots of games (just not MMO's) has similar stuff. Madden's been doing it for years and years.

And more to the point I'd think Warhammer Online's upcoming version of this is the one they're really after. LotRO's version is just shorta shabby.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nevermind WoW, how are you going to feel when you are lying on your deathbed looking back on your lifetime of work when you realize that being a whiz at WordPerfect 5.1 or a MySQL DB optimization genius is a hell of a lot less compelling than it seemed back in the day? Technology sucks out your soul and chews it up. WoW is just a cog in the machine.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[GodfatherofSoul]

I used to think exactly as you did. Then, I realized that the problem was my inability to moderate my play (because I had so much fun playing WoW). If you feel like you're wasting time on some entertainment outlet, you're probably doing it too much at the expense of your real life and real obligations.

BTW, I've stopped playing precisely for that reason. But, I had a hell of a lot of fun playing and I can't blame Blizzard for creating such a phenomenal product.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[happyemoticon]

If by "point" you mean there's some large, enduring justification for doing something, then yes, nothing has a point because we, the planet, and the universe will die. But if you mean ANY justification, things can most certainly have points. I don't need any better reason than pleasure and love to have sex, even though pleasure is fleeting, love is fragile, and eventually I'll die. Likewise, I play video games to have fun, pointless as it may be. And I stopped playing WoW because it stopped being fun.

If I might wax philosophical myself, it would seem that different activities have different reward patterns. Arts, sciences, sports, and skills in general tend to have scant rewards at first, but become more enjoyable and more rewarding as you begin to get better. Conversely, traditional MMOs (like recreational drugs) are really fun in the beginning, and the rewards taper out after a certain amount of use. More and more effort is required to achieve the same reward. There's a ton of stuff to do in the beginning, but as you approach the endgame, content gets harder, more people are required to be more focused, and payoffs are much more scarce - all designed to trickle out those last few drops that you need to feel like you've completed the game. And this isn't really a problem in most games, except that WoW tries very hard to become the last game you ever play.

So, it would seem that in terms of long-term appreciation, we would be well-advised to take up a few things which are open-ended, as things like drugs and MMOs eventually peter out, or only focus on short-term, non-addicting games.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Tubal-Cain]

Knowing WoW doesn't pay as well.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[dcjester]

And LOTRO probably got the idea from existing games, such as Guild Wars and City of Heroes (mind you, both made and run by NCSoft). As usual, its the idea that "if it works in a competitors game, why not put it in ours and see what happens?" Look at every game thats out there right now, people can point to one of the others and say "this game had it first" or "they are ripping this game off". Its simply seeing what other players like and dislike, and then finding out if your community of players would accept those changes in your own game. More times than not, it works, and the players welcome it with open arms. In some cases, like this, it may need to be thought out some more (I mean, come on, "Super Quest Dude"?) before actually being added to a game where getting the "uber leet gear" is more important than finding out if you killed your 5,000,000th Murloc.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[ottothecow]

I played wow for a while and I mostly enjoyed my time playing it (I quit when I didn't enjoy a lot of it and didnt have the time to put in for the stuff I did enjoy).

I feel like I developed some better team play skills (especially with regards to a fixed role) that have helped me a lot to be a better player in Team Fortress 2. They may not be particularly useful life skills but they helped me to do better in another activity so there is some value there. I sold the account which if I remember right came out to be approximately what I paid in monthly fees during the time I did play (play while college was in session was sparse but the monthly fees didn't change...) but it definitely gave me a feeling of the game not leaving me anything tangible (though it is sort of a joke to consider the character "yours").

All I have left in a tangible sense from the game are a few fraps captures I made. I have a few minutes of pvp from my 39 frost mage twink that I found a few days ago and enjoyed immensely in a sort of "fond memories" way (it helped that I was doing ridiculously well in those clips) and I sort of wish that I could return to that sort of a pvp experiance (I disliked the nature of pvp at 70 so I made a twink and sought out other skilled twinks and found competition to be much better). Unfortunately thats not the game works...and I checked the chars on armory to see what had been done after the idiot who bought them changed their names to misspellings of derogatory phrases--he had turned the 70 raid shadowpriest into a very mediocre pvp priest and eventually leveled the 39 mage into the mid 40's (it was at the time THE BEST 39 mage twink in the battlegroup...tons of time/gold spent gathering the perfect items without crossing the experiance threshold to level 40...what a shame). At least when I want to come back to TF2 in a year, I will still be able to pick up my trusty medigun or rocket launcher and play.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[zwei2stein]

They also added something like this to Guild Wars (from which Lotro borrowed it, btw.)

It kinda sucked and is indirectly responsible for sorry state it's PvE is in nowadays.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Toby_Tyke]

Well, this may be a shot in the dark, but maybe, just maybe, people find the various grinds in the game to be...fun?

I have never played WOW, but my housemate is a huge WOW addict who will regularly spend his entire weekend playing it. And I mean the entire weekend. Toilet and food breaks, but nothing else.

But the interesting thing is that he seems to derive almost no enjoyment from playing it. All he ever seems to do is complain constantly. "Oh for fucks sake, I've got to kill $x of $y!". "I've been doing this for an hour!". "Now I've got to go there!". Non-stop whining. The only positive things he ever says about his WOW playing are things like "I have X gold", or "I went up X levels this weekend".

Now as I said, I'm not a WOW player, or an MMORPG player at all, so I expect a lot of them are going to reply and tell me how wrong I am, but here's my theory. I think that some WOW players, like my house mate, do not actually enjoy playing the game. They enjoy the sense of achievement they get from having 70 levels and a shitload of virtual gold. The hours of grind required to get there are simply the price they have to pay to get that. That's why you hear so many players complaining about the "timesink". They aren't having fun. They just have to slog through it to pick up the next level.

Before you all start screaming at me, I'm not saying all MMO players are like this, just that I've noticed some are.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got wow the day i came out and i got addicted, i beat most of my friends to 60, played for ages! got massivly boored in molten core and BWL geting kewl items so i could then have it all become useless in Burning crusade.

Then i got a girlfriend
That was the end of wow.

Once i got a girlfriend and a full time job there isn't enough time to play games and when there was there was definatly something better to do

wow doesn't suck it's just a very poor replacement for real achievements

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[BobMcD]

Well, this may be a shot in the dark, but maybe, just maybe, people find the various grinds in the game to be...fun? Agreed. Or to try and put it another way, since all of life is a grind, so why not select the most pleasant version of it?

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Idimmu Xul]

I played for a couple of years... but man... what's the point? It's just a giant life force sucking treadmill.

Well, the 8/9 hours a day I, and many others, spend at work aren't nearly as emotionally rewarding as enjoying a good game or other distraction. You must have got some kind of enjoyment out of it during that time?

-- Free Playstation 3, Wii and XBox 360

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[ReiDragon]

What about when you find a boyfriend through WoW like I did? Then it keeps going since he found a gamer chick, and I found him.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[DerWulf]

People keep saying this "oh man, that's just a copy of XYZ" as if it's a bad thing. In all products and technology I wish people would copy more the good stuff from their competitors. As a customer I'm the one benefiting from that.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote Kurt Vonnegut
- "Humans were put here to fart around."

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

It might, and even more so then any technological skill, because personal and mass communication skills never get out of trend. Just like with infamous Dutch Tulip craze back then (OK, wrong example, but bear with me), anything that *interests* a lot of people, for *whatever* reason, can cause them to pay you, directly or indirectly. For instance, if there was a WoW Live show (pay to play, but watch for less, or free) and thus prominent PCs could gather fame in wide audience, they would probably generate income as entertainers, virtual gladiators or whatever. There would be a job for "virtual cameramen" or "reporter" as well, to wade through WoW and broadcast interesting happenings. You could have "online theater", actors playing plays through their virtual avatars, etc... It is FUN to watch good players excel. Of course, usual gaming try-fail-repeat routine won't cut it, but really good players will never starve.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[vertinox]

The sense of fulfillment you get from any hobby -- be it building model planes, or collecting bottle caps. Call me an existentialist, but you can step back from any aspect of life and ask "what's the point?" and you will generally find that there isn't one.

I think the point is that grinding is not the hobby but rather what you have to do to get things to enjoy the hobby.

It would like not be able to build your models until you've actually held down a full time job to pay for the models, paint, and glue BUT every time you went to the store to buy a model the store clerk wouldn't let you buy just any model until you finished making the same 50 of the simplest one in the store.

So grinding to me is not the hobby but rather something tacked on to the gameplay in order to make up for the fact the developers can't really think of anything dynamic to give you.

Most people don't want a second job to enjoy a hobby... Hence the reason why gold farmers are so profitable.

If you take away the grind and make the game dynamic and enjoyable 24/7 without having to kill the same things over and over again then you've got the next MMOG gold.

UO kind of did this but kind of went the wrong way with it, but WAR Online should be aiming to alleviate the grind problem by adding more player interaction and dynamism that will make any day fun to play.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I get it.

But World of Warcraft is now just introducing badges, which games like City of Heroes have since day 1, 4+ years ago.

Some of my better and favorite badges, though I can't remember their names:

• Killing 100 Hulks in Perrigrine Island, a tough, hard-hitting boss street trash with groupies (Grants +5% endurance or health or something)
  
• Doing 1 million points damage
  
• Taking 1 million points damage
  
• Dying and resurrecting (many) times
  
• Killing this or that Giant Monster, Monster, or Arch Villain
  
• Nimble Mynx, for visiting the apartment of one of the main characters
  

By the way, you get your high speed travel power for free at level 14, and at 18 one can already leap well over 100' into the air and around at 60 MPH.

I could handle WoW badges, though. Here's some I'd like, then I might go back to it for awhile:

• Slaughtering idiot Horde in Alterac Valley with my purple Tier 3 (? don't know, it does way more DPS than that level 70 purple crap on the AH) crossbow
  
• Defending this or that village from a swarm of 70 Horde gankers.
  
• Taking out solo a ganker level 54 Horde who was skull to me and was ganking me and others. Now that was sweet.
  
• Earning over 1,000 gold purely by playing the AH
  
• Earning over 10k gold purely by playing the AH
  
• And so on
  

And some for others in WoW:

• Shell Head You have spent over 100 hours turtling on the Field of Strife in Alterac Valley!
  
• It Ain't Like Da Movies You have bravely rushed into battle against overwhelming odds and been soundly and rapidly defeated just as the odds actually dictate, over 5000 times!
  
• Hot Stuff, Not! You have learned that when a male character comes up and stands next to you, then kinda looks away, he's actually rotating his camera around to get a good view of your cowgirl booty.
  
• It's My Football! You don't play your class anything remotely like it was designed, like a priest specializing in damage, or a hunter specializing in melee and not even using a pet.
  
• It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To! Requires It's My Football!, you have caused the catastrophic wipes of over 100 PUGs.
  
• Jfasdfieoihsfpeoi You have sent out in-game email advertisements to over 100,000 players!
  
• Usefulless You have gimped your class' primary function (tank, DPS, healing, etc.) to talent up some utility function that's Teh Bombe!
  
• Galahad Requires Usefulless, your character is closely modeled after a real fictional character, but, since you don't actually hold Excalibur, which would be even higher than the ultra-rare orange reward swords, your alternative talent tree leaves you very gimped, hence the resemblence is mostly in your mind.
  
• Astounding! Requires Galahad, It Ain't Like Da Movies, and It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To!, you have achieved level 70 on a PvP server without being on anybody's ignore or hit list.
  

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[brkello]

I played for a couple of years... but man... what's the point?

Going out on a limb here...but fun?

For the non-hardcore it just replace time sitting in front of the TV.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[chronoblip]

I am a fan of customization and choices. When you pick a class in WoW, you get at most 3 choices on how you want to play that class. There are slight variations on the 3 main types, but pretty much you will get pigeon holed into one of the roles.

That's why I have enjoyed games of the hack-and-slash style a lot more, ALA Diablo series and most recently Titan Quest (I love TQ). You get to pick a play style from caster, melee, or hybrid, because that's as specific as you can get while still being able to talk about all the classes. There are just that many ways to go about the general play styles that you feel a very strong amount of control with regard to how your character plays.

What WoW lacked for me was the freedom to feel like I actually had a choice in how I am playing. Your base stats mean nothing and the whole game is a matter of learning your role and playing it better than someone else.

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm unclear on why WoW players seem so incapable of moderation...

Here, let me blow your mind: I have an account... but sometimes I don't even log in for more than 24 hours!

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[maglor_83]

If it sucks so much, why did you keep playing for a couple of YEARS?!

Re:I'm so over Wow.

[Reapy]

You just have to think out what you are willing to do, and you won't be disillusioned at the end. I played wow way back, got to 60, ran 1 instance, saw that all I had to look forward to was minuscule gear upgrades (no bgs or pvp at the time) and doing the same thing over and over again, so I quit, having fully enjoyed my time playing. I just started again about 2 months ago, and now at 70, am doing some gear grinding and what not, because I find the experience more enjoyable this time around, esp playing with a few more friends. If the game gets too grindy for me, I just shut it off and do something else.

So, just be aware of how you are feeling at the game, and how much time you want to put into something, and as long as you aren't letting yourself get overwhelmed, no reason to look back with regret. I mean, it's fun to get so obsessed with something you don't want to even leave to go eat food. How often do we get into something that much? Not very. Enjoy it, just dont let it wreck every other part of your life :)

The sequel looks better

[Mr. Sketch]

I heard that in the upcoming sequel to WoW you will get to control a character who plays WoW, it's called World of World of Warcraft. Here's the announcement:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/warcraft_sequel_lets_gamers_play

Congratulations!

[BZWingZero]

Achievement unlocked: No life. Achievement value: 1000

Re:Congratulations!

[jonaskoelker]

But how do you kill that which has no life?

So....?

[Stickerboy]

This is just another resource you grind for in the game, from Gold to Honor to Arena Points and Arena Rating to Tokens in instance drops. I think any innovation would have to be in the rewards, like introducing a Traits or Perks system like in Fallout. More raid gear equivalents as a reward would be redundant... you can get that simply by endless losing in Battlegrounds.

From the attention list though, it looks like they're focusing on casual players... "Super Quest Dude", various quest chains, etc. That's a welcome addition for those of us that don't have endless hours to play every day.

Re:So....?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Somehow I get the feeling that, a short time after the expansion comes out, it will be just like it is now. Every time I step into a PvP event, I'll be facing a team of basement-dwellers that can (somehow) afford to grind rep/honor/arena points/badges 20 hours a day, so they're wearing the best possible gear in the game. Every time I'm out trying to quest, similar people with winning personalities will take great pleasure in blasting the shit out of me with their tier-whatever or uber-gladiator gear, with no fear whatsoever that I'll be able to beat them.

I really don't know if there's any way to make WoW work any differently without pissing off a large portion of their paying customers, but I hope they can come up with something to make it less painful for those of us that can't live in the game.

Re:So....?

[markov_chain]

I know, someone should create a WoW fork for nice people... they could call it DikuWoW *rimshot*

Re:So....?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should be playing on a non-PvP server then.

Why not Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're behind the times? When will Slashdot get achievements?

Just think, we could have one for trolling, first posting, ...

Re:Why not Slashdot?

[TheSpoom]

Everyone will want the coveted +5, Troll award.

Re:Why not Slashdot?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Everyone will want the coveted +5, Troll award.

I play an Orc, you insensitive clod!

Wow.

[hikaricloud]

Oh snap! After playing for 2364872364 hours straight, I can buy a Daedric Face of God!

Oh. Wrong game. Crap.

angry face

[Anonymous Coward]

"I played for a couple of years... but man... what's the point?

It's just a giant life force sucking treadmill." a little harsh bro don't you think? i mean i could understand you not liking the game, but all that? if you don't like it so much, why bother posting that? you could be destroying young peoples dreams and hopes of getting really "Into" a game such as wow.

*snort*

[OMNIpotusCOM]

Congratulations on using "In soviet Russia..." joke without getting tagged off-topic.

Re:*snort*

[TheSpoom]

Yay new achievement!

For the obsessive compulsive...

[Forcepath]

100% completionists among us, this is one reason why I absolutely have to stay away from WotLK. ..if it's true that is. Even so, this feels like a poor attempt at adding content to make the game feel like less of a grind.

Re:For the obsessive compulsive...

[bonehead]

Actually, it looked like it would add even more grind to the game. It was all "Do random mundane task X million times".

There are enjoyable aspects to WoW, but in my experience, the farther along you get, the more boring it gets. I've been playing for about 2 years now, and haven't even got one char to 70. In fact, my account is currently inactive, and I've not decided if I'll pay it up again. I'm halfway through lvl 65 and just that half of a level has taken me over 4 months. There are things I'm looking forward to at 70, but I can't take the grinding necessary to get there.

hey a rumor about a minor addition to a game

[hlomas]

let's make a post about it!

Some Possible Achievements

[Bwana Geek]

- Bathed
- Went outside
- Eyes adjusted to natural light
- Talked about something not WoW-related

These achievements are also rumoured to be coming to the D&D 4th Edition.

not quite

[unity100]

the achievement fulfillment you get from building model planes, or collecting bottle caps, stay as they are. each of the becomes a permanent piece in your collection. they do not get obsolete with yearly introduced expansions and get thrown away.

Re:not quite

[BigDork1001]

Lets flip that around a bit. My WoW hobby doesn't leave crap scattered all over the house and piling up in a closet somewhere.

Re:not quite

[zippthorne]

Well, that's not the experience of most people's WoW hobby...

Re:not quite

[Flamora]

And who's to say the memories of what you've done don't stay with you? I played WoW for about two years starting on release day, and I still have all the videos that I shot (I was my guild's lead videographer) of my guild's first kills of every boss in the game up to the Four Horsemen in Naxxrammus. Sure, we never scored any world firsts and only had one server first, but I enjoyed the camaraderie that my guildmates and I had, and I enjoyed the experience of being given a puzzle and working with 39 other people to solve it.

I don't have model airplanes or whatnot to show people, but I do still have some pretty nice videos to show them. :)

Re:not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, a friend of mine was telling me yesterday that the world-of-warcraft menu bar is burned into his screen, so you can actually have a permanent 'trophy'.

Until you get a decent monitor.

Re:not quite

[unity100]

with the examples they have given, ie model airplanes, you have both the memory and the thing to show people. what you have are only images of memories.

Re:not quite

[brkello]

And you are posting on Slashdot. What do you have to show for it...only memories and the ability to see your messages of the past. If we go with this stupid model airplane thing, you should have been making a model airplane instead of posting on Slashdot.

We do a lot of stupid things to pass the time and enjoy ourselves. Judging someone on how they spend their free time is pretty sad. And I am tired of coming on Slashdot and reading people telling people how to live their lives and then spouting off some libertarian philosophy on how no one should interfere with their lives. Isn't that just a tad hypocritical?

Re:not quite

[MBGMorden]

That IS pretty bad :). Strangely enough though, the only monitor I've ever had to screen burn was an LCD. Yeah, yeah, I know. That's supposed to be impossible. It happened though. I had a Hyundai Imagequest L70A. Even when booted into Linux, there was a little "Start" button (from Windows) burned into the corner of the screen. Other edges of the monitor were also distorted, almost as if the edges had melted just a lil. The monitor completely died about 3-4 weeks later.

Re:not quite

[MBGMorden]

So grab a figure print. Just having a physical model doesn't invalidate the original poster's point. What's the point in going out in dancing? No physical thing there either. It's simply that people do things because they're fun. If you have fun doing something, then do it. If you're not having fun, then don't do it. But to step back and try to convince yourself that "whoa, this if fun but I shouldn't be having fun this way. I should have fun in a more socially acceptable manner" is a bit strange.

As an aside, I play WoW and am quite an avid model builder. You'll not pry my Razor Diamondback nor my Paasche Millenium away any time soon :). I'm also a pilot and enjoy flying quite a bit, and have done some preliminary work on building my own airplane (a Zenith 601XL, though I'm thinking of scraping it and starting a Pietenpol Air Camper instead). Hobbies are what you make of them. Just have fun.

Re:not quite

[unity100]

in dancing, what you do doesnt get obsolete, or useless either. if you learned salsa, it stays with you. what you know doesnt get reduced to nothing with planned, regular release of a yearly 'salsa expansion'.

Re:not quite

[unity100]

And you are posting on Slashdot. What do you have to show for it...only memories and the ability to see your messages of the past. If we go with this stupid model airplane thing, you should have been making a model airplane instead of posting on Slashdot. dont post again, if you are gonna make such shallow analogies, for you wont get an response for the second time.

with your logic its no point chatting with your spouse or your parents either.

We do a lot of stupid things to pass the time and enjoy ourselves. Judging someone on how they spend their free time is pretty sad. And I am tired of coming on Slashdot and reading people telling people how to live their lives and then spouting off some libertarian philosophy on how no one should interfere with their lives. Isn't that just a tad hypocritical? ill tell you what is hypocritical. what is hypocritical is delegating your hobby to pass the time to the hands of a company which is bent on just making you pay continually and doing that by regularly introducing stuff that will make whatever you did obsolete, a thing of the past, zero, nada, zilch, leaving only memories.

when i build a model airplane, it doesnt go obsolete and impossible to make use of with the advent of a patch from a company in 1-2 months time. i dont come home and find my all model kits melted to dust overnight.

or when i post at slashdot, neither slashdot moderators or their parent company regularly edit my posts and discussions so that i have to repost them, therefore using the site more for their own profit.

if you ask me, im also tired of wow fanbois blabbering bullshit about their darling game, whilst there has been and will be thousands of other prominent computer games in the past and into the future. this was the reason i have ceased playing wow in the first place, despite i come from starcraft school and a natural pvper and progress gamer in core.

Re:not quite

[MBGMorden]

But of the electric slide is hot next year you need to learn something new ;). It could even be argued that since salsa never changes, then it gets stale too fast and people would get bored doing that instead of sticking with something that gives them a changing set of objectives (not saying I agree with that, I'm just playing devil's advocate).

The point is simply that if one enjoys doing something, then they enjoy it. Coming back with an endless supply "BUT WITH PB&J, YOU GET TO EAT IT!!!" proves nothing except that you don't like what you're trying to deride. That's wonderful. Don't partake in that activity. It doesn't mean it's a waste, or that people shouldn't be doing this, or what not. It just means that you don't enjoy it, and they do, so let people do that they want.

Re:not quite

[Cornflake917]

You know you can use the shift key to capitalize letters right? You seem to know where the "." and the "," keys are as well, the "'" key is relatively close to them. Really. Just try it. It's not that difficult.

ill tell you what is hypocritical. what is hypocritical is delegating your hobby to pass the time to the hands of a company which is bent on just making you pay continually and doing that by regularly introducing stuff that will make whatever you did obsolete, a thing of the past, zero, nada, zilch, leaving only memories. You've failed to mention why that's hypocritical. Care to explain? Also saying WoW only leaves you with only memories is not really true. Especially in a game that involves social interaction. If you're not a total jackass to people over the internet, you can actually make friends. I know it's insane, but it can happen.

Re:not quite

[unity100]

you either didnt read, or ignoring what i wrote.

in wow you have only your memories. everything else, and what memory you are gonna have next is at the whim of a lead developer in a software company. and that company does not have a good track record of caring for the players lately.

in everything else that has been given as example, you are the decision maker when it comes to your hobby.

Re:not quite

[unity100]

electric slide you learn next year wont risk being obsolete within 1.5 months of its appearance with a patch.

leaving one's enjoyment and the way its conducted to the whims of a company's lead developer is not wise. if blizzard was like google, if it cared for its players' enjoyment like google fought u.s. govt for its users' privacy, it would be acceptable to do it. but it isnt.

blizzard is just an underling of quarterly profit greedy conglomerate vivendi now. and its entire development approach has been made to be in line with the 'make huge quarterlies, screw everything else' line of thought vivendi has.

blizzard is no more.

Re:not quite

[Anguirel]

Disco isn't dead? You have nightly waltzes playing in all the hottest clubs near you? The break-dancers are no longer trying to push the limit and do something new? The dance clubs play all their music for free and you don't need to pay every time you go? They aren't trying to make money off your entertainment?

My ability to lead a raid translates to the next expansion, or the next game. The club I used to dance at no longer plays music I like. I guess my dancing skills have gone obsolete, as there is no place to utilize them since the art has moved on, but my gaming skills have not, as there is still a place where I can put them to use.

Re:not quite

[MBGMorden]

electric slide you learn next year wont risk being obsolete within 1.5 months of its appearance with a patch. Actually, the electric slide has been obsolete for quite a while now ;).

You're still not getting it. You're latching onto one thing that you don't like about a product or service, but that MANY people don't care about, or actively LIKE, and then claiming that it's a waste of time. As said, you obviously don't like Blizzard or it's games. Please understand that many do, and they're not being fooled or deceived in any way.

Re:not quite

[unity100]

i have started online gaming with starcraft back in 1998. i still run the biggest national starcraft forum. dont jump into self conceived conclusions. but that was a different era.

Please understand that many do, and they're not being fooled or deceived in any way. they'll see in time.

Re:not quite

[unity100]

Disco isn't dead? no

You have nightly waltzes playing in all the hottest clubs near you? there are a lot of clubs for any kind of dance enthusiast. and 'hottest' is very relative.

The dance clubs play all their music for free and you don't need to pay every time you go? They aren't trying to make money off your entertainment? making money is one thing, MILKING customers is another. if a nightclub have disabled the water taps in their club in order to sell the customers bottled water in exorbitant prices, that would be similar to what blizzard is doing.

Re:not quite

[brkello]

Wow. You really don't get it. I'll break it down very simply for you. If you don't like it, don't play it, I really don't care and am not trying to change your mind. But don't tell me how to spend my free time.

with your logic its no point chatting with your spouse or your parents either.

No, that was YOUR logic. You see how stupid it is to tell people what they should do with their free time yet? Sad thing is that by that comment you just proved that you agreed with me but are too stupid to understand. So, I guess I win. Better luck next time.

Its basically the system in Lotro

[unity100]

Deed thingies. if you played lotro, you'd know.

That exists in Guild Wars for ages

[Vapula]

In Guild Wars, you already have that system for a long time...
- Cartographer titles (exploring more than X% of the territory)
- Survivor title (reaching level 20 without dying)
- Lucky/Unlucky (related to random events like lottery or keeping/losing lockpick kits)
- Protector (having done all the "cooperative missions" (like the instances) with their bonus
- Drunk title (for being drunk more than x minutes)
and so on...

There are also meta-titles (like for having all protector titles), PvP titles, ...

When you're in a city, you may display one of these title along with your name.

So don't

[Moraelin]

With that said, I detest games that require you to stay on the treadmill to "keep up". At least when I do work I hate during normal working hours, I get paid...

The bleeding obvious answer is: so don't stay on the treadmill. Go do whatever keeps you entertained, when it keeps you entertained.

I'm somewhat surprised how many people seem to, well, think they have some kind of _duty_ to achieve some level, get some item, etc. Or in some pathological cases think they somehow prove their penis size by how many level 70's they have and with what gear. So they grind and work and miss the whole point of having fun and/or making friends.

The game between levels 1 and 69 is _the_ meat of the game. That's the zones you're supposed to explore, enemies you're supposed to test yourself against, the quests and bits of story you're supposed to discover, etc. That's the actual game. It's some hundreds of hours worth of content.

And it sorta amuses me to see some people try to skip the actual game, or even use some bot to skip it for them, just so they too can then willy-wave about having a level 70. And then get stuck in an endgame grind which is no more than a repetitive chore for people who've finished the actual game and don't know when to quit.

It's akin to trying to skip most of the LOTR trilogy, just to end up watching the last 5 minutes in a loop, for months.

So basically, then just don't stay on a treadmill. Realize that levels and gear are there just

A) to give you some sense of making progress,

B) so you can practice your new abilities and tactics one at a time, instead of dumping 60 icons upon you from the start, and putting you in front of Kil'jaeden before you even know what they all do, and

C) to gently guide you about in which order you're supposed to go through the story and quests. Among other thing _because_ that's the actual game, some hundreds of hours and thousands of quests, which you're supposed to play and experience. Not just click an "I win!!!" button and be over with it.

But there is no obligation to keep up with anyone or anything. There is no par time that you have to beat. And it's not some shameful failure to take things at your own pace, do the things you feel like doing, and generally just enjoy the game.

In other words, the game is about and consists of the road, not just the destination.

And if you think that that road, in fact the game itself, is just a treadmill, well, you can just quit it now. Because it doesn't get any better. Once you're done with that "treadmill", there is no grand reward waiting for you, and no "meat of the game" that begins at level 70. What happens when that "treadmill" finally ends, is that it spits you right into the tarpit of a repetitive and pointless grind that's there just do give you something to do while you wait for the next segment (i.e., expansion pack) of the actual game.

Re:So don't

[TheGeneration]

I totally agree with you on just about every point. The problem for me is that some of the mid games stories aren't very compelling. (Stuff in the 30's and 40's bracket can be pretty mundane.)

In addition there has to be a better way to tell a story then "grab 30 boar pelts" off an animal that has a 20% drop rate. Why make me grind like that in hundreds of quests? It's not entertaining for me.

I personally think there is a fundamental flaw in the game play of these games.

what is it for gamers epeens i got x achievement.

[Anonymous Coward]

i been playing wow for some months now and in my opinion the whats the points. is very simple to satisfy the person via... epeens its like hey i have 18k honor points and full season 3 arena gear or hey i have full t6 gear look at it isnt it pretty or like on my server somebody finally got the legendary warglaive he has his time of the day to go brag them on a major city he goes get the biggest mount and buff himself up to be even biggger why so everybody in the game know he has that blade and depending on who you are you could say OMG HE HAVE THE BLADE. or you could say wow that guy dedicated himself to be on a organized raid team and achieved it by being on time on raids communicating etc.

and to satisfy the gamer epeens better now they will give you points to buy stuff. i hope that type of stuff its nothing that can give you and advantage over other players like weapon or armor and that is something more hey look i have a new pet for completing all the quest on x zone.

New achievement: "The poop sock award"

[syn1kk]

Blizzard would like to congratulate you for spending at least 1 year of man hours or 2920 hours. As a token of appreciation, we have changed your subscription cost to be X percent less expensive and we have sent you a complimentary pair of socks for ... your needs. ...

Congratulations.

p.s. please look for our new game called "world of world of warcraft" ( http://www.theonion.com/content/video/warcraft_sequel_lets_gamers_play ) we know you don't have any life... i mean... we know you will like it.

So why continue living?

[syn1kk]

Your claim is that life does not have any reason or explanation as to WHY you are alive or WHY am I doing this or that ?

If life has to reason to explain why you do something... what governs your decision making ?

p.s. let me guess... you are a relativists or nihilist or both?

Lovecraft might disaggree ;)

[Moraelin]

"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange æons even death may die"

Good idea

[Moraelin]

Yay, I'm off to grind bathing until it becomes grey, and then move on to the next on the list ;)

Re:Good idea

[Hoi Polloi]

Eeeeew!

Too bad you just lost a huge amount of reputation points in all factions.

Witty Comment...

[dontPanik]

Actually I don't have a witty comment. I am going to try to get all of these achievements.

My son loves WSG and Battlegrounds

[WillAffleckUW]

Personally, I don't get why spending 100 hours fighting combats that prove nothing other than your ability to log on when the Alliance is low on twinks and the Horde is strong makes anyone feel they've accomplished anything.

It's like those useless combat awards I got in the Army - half are for things that anyone can do ...

Guild Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope not! Guild Wars added such a system and it really is what sparked the game to take a 180 and become the mess it is today.

The greatest achievement...

[Anonymous Coward]

My greatest WoW achievement was finally quitting the game.

Achievement met!!! You earn.....

[Dreamsleep]

I leveled to 15 without dying! What achievement did I unlock??

um.... the give that guy a cookie achievement?

Rumor and not a big deal

[Avatar8]

First and foremost, this is a rumor. As the FA suggests, it could be a doctored screen since "PvP" is listed twice and having a title like "Quest Dude" is not in keeping with Blizzard's style.

Even if it does get implemented, I don't see this as a system for "grinding." I also play LotRO on those rare occasions when I don't feel like playing WoW. Yes, this appears to be exactly like the Deeds system. In LotRO those are not achievements you intentionally pursue; they're objectives that you just happen to complete while you're playing, or you might complete most of them and discover "If I visit that one last farm, I'll get X." I'd see this having the same effect in WoW. I doubt the rewards for such easily achievable tasks would be great either, just like in LotRO. They're beneficial, but they're not game altering or anything that you cannot play without.

Regardless, we'll keep playing with or without any rewards because playing the game and having a good time is the reward.

World of Warcraft cheats World of Warcraft hacks a

[weirdbutter]

For World of Warcraft cheats World of Warcraft hacks and wow gold guides go to http://www.exploitsrus.com/wow.html