SWFans Achievements

[Dasquian Belargic]

Off the back of the discussion going in the 'Compliments and Criticisms' thread, I thought I'd start this thread to see what kind of Achievements people would be interesting in having.

The initial suggestion is that an Achievement icon would be awarded to a character who participated in and completed a particularly plot event. Ideally something that a number of characters have taken part in, or are likely to take part in at some point in the future. There could other non-plot based achievements too, but given that the purpose of this is partly to encourage activity and completion of threads, I think plot-based stuff is probably the best to start with :)

For example:

Survivor of the Jedi Purge
Fought at the Battle of Endor
Faced an Inquisitor and Lived

The icon would be a bar (something like but larger than a topic tag) that could be included in their signature, worn like a medal / badge of pride.

The suggestions I have so far are just Star Wars related but there could be Achievements for other settings too.

If you've got any suggestions for threads/events/story arcs that would be worthy of Achievements, please share 'em!

[Captain Untouchable]

Maybe a "member of the Jedi Order" achievement would be more versatile than a Purge survivor one? That way it can apply to ye olde Jedi characters too.

Similar medals for other factions would be useful. I think General Dan was a Separatist; I know Vansen Tyree was in the Republic and Imperial navies; I'm sure there are a ton of other good examples. Maybe we could even go so far as to put your current faction (or if you're in a different roleplay setting / it's an OOC account) in, since the current "join the relevant group" system isn't forgetfulness proof?

I know those aren't actually "achievements" but they still might be useful.

Other suggestions:
Jedi Ranks - Padawan, Knight, etc. Also possibly separate "Force Sensitive" (for Charlotte Tur'enne, Morgan, etc) and "Jedi Council" ones.
Took part in / completed a fleeting thread
Took part in / completed a dogfight / fighter pilot thread
Took part in / completed a ground combat / military operation thread
Took part in / completed a lightsaber duel
Changed their name (for Salem Ave, etc)
Suffered Imperial <s>Captivity</s> Hospitality


Maybe we could add in some nominatable ones as well, for things like good character development, drama, unexpected plot twists, moving you to tears, making people wet themselves with witty dialogue, and that sort of thing.

We've got the Reputation system in place already, we did thread and character of the months, and we do that annual "pick the best <blank>" type doodad thing... seems like a reasonable extension of concept.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Rather than having a bunch of these in my signature, I'd be more interested in having them on my profile page. Just a thought. :)

[Karl Valten]

Non-Adept Fought an Adept and Won/Survived
Faced an Adept without the use of a Lightsaber Won/Survived
Killed another Player Character (Cuz I've actually done that and am proud of it)



And just for the hell of it:

Successfully Ran a Blockade
Beat a Wookie at Holo-Chess
Did(not) have Delusions of Granduer
Avoided at Trap!
Lost to a Primitive Enemy
Found what he/she was Looking For


:cool: :p

[Vince]

Jace's post got me thinking that it might actually be easier to run the Character/Roleplayer of the Month (or perhaps of the Financial Quarter, given how often we leave it hanging) through the use of this option rather than through the wiki (only). We could have a badge or something in the signature, with the award and the year and the month/quarter in it. A simple badge or banner would do, and all that would need to be changed is the text in it.

Even if we don't end up implementing the entire idea, I think this one could do nicely. We could even try and use it as a starter or an experiment to see if we wanted to do the others and how we could make it easier to implement them if we did decide to try and implement other awards and achievements.

[Xel-Naga]

The issue I see with achievements is it might push players to put their characters in situations they might not otherwise end up in so that they can nab an achievement/badge. Anyone who has played any video game with multiplayer achievements knows how bad this can be when there is a really obnoxious, hard achievement that involves playing at a less than optimal level in order to achieve it. I play a lot of Call of Duty and nothing is more annoying than watching someone run around with a horrible weapon just so they can complete the challenges and lose the game for you.

Listing achievements for fighting force adepts and the like will make any sort of achievement hound want to stick their character where it doesn't belong. I like the idea of acknowledging things characters have done, but there is a darkside to it and I'm afraid of where that could lead. So long as it doesn't end up as a collection process I think we'll be fine.

[Dasquian Belargic]

The issue I see with achievements is it might push players to put their characters in situations they might not otherwise end up in so that they can nab an achievement/badge.

Given the average age and temperament of our existing members, I can't see this being a problem. If it became a problem, I think we could address it on an individual basis. That being said, part of the motivation behind this idea (for me) is to actively encourage people to do things they might not ordinarily do, to have characters interact who wouldn't ordinarily interact.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Rather than having a bunch of these in my signature, I'd be more interested in having them on my profile page. Just a thought. :)

Again, this is a coding issue so it would be down to Ogre to say whether or not we could have an extra profile field and how you'd go about allowing members to add multiple images to their profile.

The reason I suggested signature is because then whenever you're posting, if you turn on your sig your achievements would be visible for everyone to see... and what fun are achievements if you can't show them to everyone? :D

An alternative also might be to make use of the wiki and have characters display their achievements on a part of their wiki profile, which they would just link to from their sig.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Jace's post got me thinking that it might actually be easier to run the Character/Roleplayer of the Month (or perhaps of the Financial Quarter, given how often we leave it hanging) through the use of this option rather than through the wiki (only). We could have a badge or something in the signature, with the award and the year and the month/quarter in it. A simple badge or banner would do, and all that would need to be changed is the text in it.

That's a cool idea. You could still have an article on the wiki and perhaps have the achievement badge link to it.

[Captain Untouchable]

Maybe we could have wiki pages for each award with a link from the image? On that page we'd be able to provide a list of all of the characters who have earned that award, and possibly even a little bit of a blurb on some of them; explaining what they did at Endor, what sort of trap they avoided, and possibly directing you to the thread (or threads) where it happened.

That way it's a little more meaningful than an "Achievement Unlocked!" type deal.

Also...
a disabled sticker for those of us who have lost eyes, limbs, or other appendages. Also entitles you to park in handicap threads.
Lived With The Consequences - did something terrible (or screwed up really badly) and was made to suffer for it
I Have the Death Sentence on Twelve Systems! - tangled with law enforcement or the local garrison, and is now a wanted man
I Am Your Father! - is the dad of another character on Fans (fo' serious - why do we have so many dads around? >_< )
Big Damn Hero - did something fantastically heroic like rescuing a Jedi from Coruscant, sneaking around the Death Star turning off tractor beams, babysitting Teagan s'Ilancy, etc.

[Tear]

Should there be a guide line of requirements that need to be met to achieve these? Disregarding the obvious of course. But for example should we have it that people need to finish a thread to be eligible for any of the achievements they might have accrued during its course?

It might be a good way to keep threads from dying. While keeping achievement hunters from amassing limp threads simply to score.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

We should have a "been captured" achievement. I would have that with lots of characters.

*sigh*

[Aidan Fox]

Playing for the Other Team: You switched sides of the Force!
Amputee: You underestimated your opponent's power!
Marshal Artist Fisting: ...what the heck did you just write?
You Might Want to Have a Test Done: You slept with Sanis Prent!

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

How big are we wanting the graphics? I threw this together, but I know that it might not look best if shrunk down to a super tiny size. As it stands, it's currently 200x200 pixels.

http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/fought-at-endor.jpg

Something like this I can see being awarded for larger campaign type threads with a group of folks, while the bars that Jenny mentioned could be for other smaller scale stuff.

[Morgan Evanar]

RUN! - You successfully fled from almost certain doom.
Babies... everywhere! - had a child
How I Met Your Mother - part of your family history is a big question mark.
I shot the sheriff... - unwanted entanglements have ended violently.

[Glen Fiddich]

How I Met Your Mother - part of your family history is a big question mark.

This is my favourite one so far! :lol

[Dasquian Belargic]

How big are we wanting the graphics? I threw this together, but I know that it might not look best if shrunk down to a super tiny size. As it stands, it's currently 200x200 pixels.

http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/fought-at-endor.jpg

Something like this I can see being awarded for larger campaign type threads with a group of folks, while the bars that Jenny mentioned could be for other smaller scale stuff.

That looks really cool, and would be something neat to put on wiki pages I think.

In terms of signature graphics, I'd have to say something fairly narrow. Not much taller than the supporter or Old Fart custom title graphics, for sure - but perhaps wider to allow for more in the way of imagery/text.

[Vince]

That is awesome. I was thinking something along the lines of what I've seen on other forums (though I can't be bothered to go find one), where the banner is incredibly thin. Some have banner signatures of nationalities, like a thin banner of the mexican flag with 'Mexico' written on it (or perhaps like the icons you can pick up for nations and countries like in Call of Duty for your online tags and such), or for various other things.

Think the dimensions we use for the forum topic tags, only longer. Barely large enough for a design to be seen, but small enough that we don't need a huge amount of space for the signature in the first place.

...And I pretty much just parroted Dasquian there. Grah! Always beaten to the punch! And if Dasq's been there, the punch is likely spiked!

[Captain Untouchable]

How wide-but-thin are we talking with these things? If they're too wide, then you're going to end up with a bunch of them on top of each other... and with a normal-sized signature in there as well, you might end up with something pretty tall.

However, if - like I think Jenny already suggested? - we're going to link to a wiki page for the achievement anyway, we don't actually need that much text on the achievement at all. We could almost get away with stuff the size of the Old Fart / Order of the Scorpion images... or even Fallout style (http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/fallout-new-vegas/achievements/) little pictures, with the mouse-over tooltip and/or wiki page providing more specifics.