Retroactive achievements and how they'll work
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 21st 2008 at 5:00PM
I was away at E3 last week when the big news dropped about achievements coming to Wrath of the Lich King, but that doesn't mean I'm any less excited about them -- I am a huge fan of achievements on Xbox 360, not only because it's really fun to see what other people have and haven't done in game, but because they definitely extend my own gameplay. Despite the fact that the only reward on Xbox Live is meaningless gamer points, I often find myself going the extra distance in games just to earn those achievements, and considering that the achievements in WoW will actually offer tangible rewards like tabards, titles, and whatever else Blizzard can dream up, I'm all for them.Of course, the biggest question players have asked so far is whether or not the achievements will be retroactive. The short answer is: yes. The longer answer is: most of them will be. Starting with Wrath, Blizzard is going to be tracking an astounding number of things about our characters, and obviously some of them haven't been tracked the whole time -- it'll be very hard to determine how many yetis, for example, that you've killed, and so something like that will likely not be retroactive. But it's easy to know, for example, whether you've turned in a quest or killed a raid boss, and so that stuff will almost assuredly be retroactive.
My guess is that Blizzard will tune some of the old world achievements to make them more easily checkable (i.e. instead of "Kill 1,000 Furbolgs," it'll be something like "Be Exalted with Timbermaw Hold" -- something they can very easily know about your character). In the future, we'll probably have a few more silly achievements (Blizzard is already working on implementing a few more in-depth stats). And the real question is how/if this will all be shown in the Armory -- if websites can determine guild progress just based on the gear characters are wearing, imagine what we'll be able to do with all of this achievement data.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Instances, NPCs, Achievements
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Lolrus Jul 21st 2008 5:10PM
I actually got a response to this from a blue. They are NOT going to give us retro kill credit. You will have to kill Rag/Only/Nef etc again.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8202460546&postId=82016624481&sid=2000#0
raogrimm Jul 21st 2008 5:28PM
Lolrus is right. If you read the blue post, the way blizzard will look at achievements is that they are quests. And because they aren't in the game yet, your not on the quest. So only things that can been seen will be retroactive, such as actually items (pets, tabards, etc), titles, reputation, and honorable kills from pvp.
Clint Jul 22nd 2008 12:32PM
^ i like that...negative 'achievements' could tell a lot about the person behind the character.
# of times afk'd from wsg / ab / eots / av
# of times 'dishonorable' lowbie ganks
# of times kicked from a guild
# of guilds joined / left
avg time at each guild
etc...
ivan256 Jul 21st 2008 5:13PM
We can all look forward to people excluding others from groups based on a lack of certain achievements, comments like "You haven't done [insert inane task here]??! What a nub.", And constant "Wewt! I just unlocked [stupid accomplishment]" in Guild/Trade/General/Local Defense.
Yay.
Ziv Jul 21st 2008 5:28PM
Sounds like you need to unplug and take a break from the game. No disrespect intended. Hopefully, if you return, you'll rediscover happiness in this game.
Radiophonic Jul 21st 2008 6:21PM
@Ziv
No, he has a point. It's likely the best, easiest way to discriminate against other players: look at their achievements.
Tiforix Jul 21st 2008 7:07PM
In that case let me propose a new acheivement stat:
Number of items ninja-looted.
Adam Jul 21st 2008 5:14PM
Actually Tigole said they havent tracked Boss kills and so there not retroactive.
SpaceDog Jul 21st 2008 5:30PM
I'm sure some people will get pissy about certain things they have done not having counted, but I think you have to realise that this system was not anticipated from launch therefore it would be impossible to recognise every past achievement.
Oldbear Jul 21st 2008 5:42PM
Maybe Blizzz will implement an "Ignored by Xnumber of players" reward for all the spammers.
Zep Jul 21st 2008 5:52PM
But Blizzard can time travel >_>
Shanic Jul 22nd 2008 12:15PM
While it is true that Blizzard doesn't track Boss kills, there are certain ways TO track if someone has slain a boss. For example, Vials of Eternity quest completed means you have killed Vashj and Kael, similarly so would Fall of the Betrayer or any loot from those bosses. It would be unfortunate if they didn't take steps to ensure there isn't contradictory data.
thebvp Jul 21st 2008 6:43PM
I’d like to see the achievement “old school raider washout” to go with my legendary. It could even come with the title “(insert name here), Hand of Mediocre.”
Tyranor Jul 21st 2008 7:16PM
Do they really expect us to go back and kill Rag, again?! Can they really not think of better incentives?
thebvp Jul 21st 2008 7:43PM
I meant that mostly as a joke. There will likely be so many achievements that no one will ever be able to get every single one of them. I'm looking forward to the ones they'll give to pre-BC achievements to make old school players feel better about themselves.
"Normalized." to those warriors who had full valor and an arcanite reaper pre- 1.6.
"Tarren Mill Survivor." for those who engaged in world pvp pre-BGS.
"Terror of BRM" for those priests who scored at least 100 mind control kills in blackrock mountain.
etc, etc. ;)
Aubrey Jul 21st 2008 7:48PM
Blizzard has big databases full of data as well as logs of kills, etc. There is no reason they couldn't process this data/logs and fill whatever new datastore they created for it.
Calaana Jul 21st 2008 7:59PM
Because, they don't delete this ever growing log at any point in time, right? The amount of data that would be stored would be damn near a terabyte a day, they simply do not have that kind of room to contain every action - I'd say they have important information saved, like raid boss kills, not all the trash.
Alveredus Jul 21st 2008 10:26PM
Just a note:
Yes, they can obviously track items in your inventory, rep, lifetime kills (numeric, anyway).
However, what I've seen so far suggests that they will only be giving achievements for quest related kills retroactively.
This includes Van Cleef, Mograine -- all the way through Onyxia. But you only get credit if you did the quest.
Future achievements may not require the quests.
But my understanding is that quest kills are the only retro-kills that will be grandfathered. (The only verification they have for old kills is whether you completed the quest. And if they deleted this data, you could re-do the quest.)
This means most of these kills won't be grandfathered. And, for instance, the awards for killing Van Cleef x-number of times would have to be awarded post-WotLK.
However, I'm almost certain from leaks I've seen that quest completions are one major source of determining kills.
PimpyMicPimp Jul 21st 2008 11:19PM
Fine article, but honestly, you need a new picture for achievment posts. I've seen that one so many, many times.
Lori Jul 22nd 2008 1:36AM
I still want achievment T-shirts. Ones that, for example, say "I'm EXAULTED with Timbermaw Hold" or "I've killed (list of bosses)". So, how long untill someone starts pulling the data and printing achievments on T-shirts for sale? You know, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.