Achievements

I like the bear cav one.    I think the title of that achievement should be something like "bear fanboy" or perhaps "luckmann award"

I also enjoy silly awards like

"peanut butter jelly time" > awarded to player with "banana warriors" and max dancing arts

Assuming you mean never in one game as opposed to never period, it looks like a good idea. Except for the last one.

Been discussed some here https://forums.elementalgame.com/344736/

I am with you though, achievements are a riot!

As long as acheivements are an option to go for, and not forced on a player, they're good.  especially if creative.

Valve's acheivements in TF2- mostly good

Valve requiring acheivements to unlock stuff (until recently)- not good

I'm also a WoW player here, and I must say I really like the variation in the achievements WoW has. Some are just a silly waste of time (Like Friend or Fowl? or  Goind Down?), other you'll get almost automatically while playing the game (Reach level 80) and others take a lot of time and effort (About all raiding ones...).

You can decide for yourself how much time and effort you really want to spend on these achievements as none of the rewards are really something required to enjoy the game.

I think I'd really enjoy an achievement system that works in a similar way in Elemental. Make some achievements have a reward, but nothing game changing. Just something to let others know what you achieved, maybe some different artwork for a building or unit?

Artwork is a good idea. That, and special units that are analogous (stat-wise) to existing units (i.e. if you can keep up an army made entirely of undeads, you get the Gold Zombie). That, and pieces of the backstory.

I'd like it. As long as it's not confined to multiplayer/online. I like collecting achievments, but hate having it tied to the interwebs.

Am I the only person who has never liked achievements?  I thought they were a dumb idea when they first started appearing.  I always felt the goals of a game should be part of the game, not some artificial list of tasks..

Other than the fun kind like in Golden Eye and Smash brothers where they don't really mean anything, they're just statements about how you did.

Yeah I mean to say on a per-game basis.

Yeah I felt this way to. But something about my obsessive collecting nature makes me want to get them all. Even if it is just a statement about how you did would be fine with me - no rewards neccessary.

I'm with you.

Some people like achievements.   Achievements provide micro-satisfaction as well as "bragging rights".   You certainly have a point though, and I agree that goals should not be some arbitrary list of things to do.  That being said, some games are starting to intigrate a reward system with achievements so that having achievements gives a direct in-game result.  

For PC achievements can be avoided, and I support doing so if there isn't something creative to be done with them   (Though on consoles, I believe they are *required* as part of publication with sony and microsoft)

I particularly dislike achievements that give in-game rewards (unless achievements are on a per-game basis and accomplishing gives you some little reward for that game). I don't like being forced to try to achieve some random task or another just to get access to content that's already there. Now, if it's something minor like a new skin for something, sure - otherwise, plegh. Some people love getting these achievements, but many don't care about them at all - thus effectively giving extra content to one group of players, while forcing others to literally work for it - to do something they don't want to in order to get access to it.

So I'd vote for achievements that don't give any meaningful in-game rewards, or per-game achievements that give little rewards in the game that you achieved it. I actually think the latter could be a lot of fun - it'd sort of act as a secondary quest system - it could even be tied directly into quests.

I'm not sure about the last part: seems like a lot of people would still be "forced" to do them.

Not if their requirements are drastic enough and rewards small enough. In such a case, only people who want to play that way, or close to it anyway would get the little bonus.

Still seems.... wrong to me.

As long as they don't give you viable ingame bonuses like the achievements for Mass Effect on Xbox360 do.  Otherwise I see great potential for whoever writes the excellent unintentional comedy bits at Stardock.  The miniturization tech description talking about lawsuits on galciv2 had me laughing for several minutes straight.

The Munchies: You've defeated an entire army with a single otherwordly creature.

Initiate Achievement: You successfully loaded the game for the first time.

Options Achievement: You clicked the Options button in the Main menu for the first time.

Achievements that give titles? That's fine. Achievements that give things like different textures for some units (and that hopefully are toggable somewhere...), that could be fine too.(as long as base textures don't suck and the achievement ones are matercraft textures) Achievements that give in game bonuses? No.

I sorta like the forum medals in GC2. They're Metaverse-dependent, so I don't know if Elemental will be able to do something similar. They have no direct effect on game play at all, but once you get familiar with them they can give you a loose impression of an individual's play style(s) and how 'good' they are from a scoremonster POV.

For in-game stuff, I just want a quest system that blows my mind and maybe some neat naming thing(s) that can put lables on the map and on units based on finishing quests, winning great battles, losing great battles, etc.

I would like for people to be able to submit achievements to vStardock and have them included in patches for the game. You would get wider distribution than just a mod.

Just my little take on achievments. They do add value to a game, after all they give you something to strive for, but a bucketful of silly achievments just tends to make the game experience suffer for me. For instance, having an achievment to play/win an online game is nice, I could even appreciate one for playing/winning some absurd number as well. If, on the other hand, there is one for 1 game, another for 5, then 10 etc it tends to be meaningless.

That said, I dislike having achievments be anything but "cool to have". Getting some visual rewards are nice, be that fancier uniforms for your troops or unlocking some artwork or somesuch. Needing to finish the "Slay 10000 footmen" achievment to train knights on the other hand is silly.

Fun, interesting and challenging achievments get a thumbs up from me. Dull, repetitive and unimaginative ones get a thumbs down

I loved the achievements in Sins of a Solar Empire. Those type of achievements should 100% be in.

In game bonuses, I pretty much agree with Wintersong - although a small in-game bonus that was VERY hard to earn I think could also be fun, but should only apply to single player.

And by small I mean that if you completed a Hard game using only "fire" magic, then maybe you get a 1-5% bonus to fire spells in future games as an example. (Although at this point I don't even know if playing the game using only a single element of magic will even be possible.) So in-game bonuses for achievements - I would be fine if they were not in at all, and if they are in I think they should be minimal and only in single player.

I have to disagree with you there: if there is any bonus, me and a lot of other people will still feel that they are being "forced".

In game achievements with their requirements and benefits limited to a singl game would basically just be quests...

I said limited to single player, not limited to a single game. In other words, bonuses (if any) should not carry over into multi-player.

Scoutdog, you don't know the meaning of the word forced.   Your OCD is not my problem.

I'm going to speak generally instead of elemental specific to these sorts of tasks. I'm going to call them tasks because that's what they always feel like to me.  These tasks need to be enjoyable.  Don't make me Knock Glass Joe down three times in the fight and then lose by decision.. that's dumb.