Kaplan on Achievements and how Blizzard is doing them differently
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 7th 2008 at 3:30PM
Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan must have finished his work on the expansion because he's talking a lot lately -- first he's all over the forums giving us tidbits about what's up with Wrath, and now he's had a chat with MTV Multiplayer about what Blizzard's planning to do the same and differently with their achievements system.He openly acknowledges the impact of the Xbox 360 and Steam platform's achievements systems, and says that Blizzard even found themselves calling the rewards "achievements," just because the idea was so well established. But they're trying to do things differently as well: whenever they can they'll offer a progress bar, and give players access to many of the stats they have, so it'll be easy to track just where you're at in the process of earning the points.
Kaplan also says that the UI team is working on completely opening up the system to mods as well, so expect to see some wild achievement addons when the mod community gets their hands on it. We do still have one more question, though: just what kinds of rewards will all these achievement points be used for? Kaplan, if you're still up for talking, feel free to chat with us.
[via WorldofWar.net]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Quests, Achievements
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Badger Aug 7th 2008 3:46PM
"He openly acknowledges the impact of the Xbox 360 and Steam platform's achievements systems, and says that Blizzard even found themselves calling the rewards "achievements," just because the idea was so well established."
Awesome! I'm glad to see that they're not trying to pass the idea off as something totally new, while still managing to make the idea their own.
Zanzi Aug 7th 2008 4:21PM
Well, Blizzard doesn't always do the most original thing, but what they do they usually do really well. It would be just like them to take a somewhat-cool idea like achievements and really take them over the top.
I like that idea of user-driven achievements, too. That could be the original slant to this whole thing that turns it up to 11.
Off the top of my head...
Hogger Must Die: Killed Hogger at level 1.
Forever Young in Neverland: Stayed the same level for over a year (for all those bank alts, PvPers and parked alts)
Pacifist [Rank (x)]: Reached level x without doing any damage to enemies.
Pugelist [Rank (x)]: Reached level x without equipping a weapon.
Lemming Award (thank you Goldeneye!): Died 1000 times by fall damage/self-casted Hellfire/self-casted Engineering gadget/etc.
Notorious Ganker: Killed 1000 players that were over 10 levels below your level.
The Friendly Ghost: Ressurected at the Spirit Healer 10,000 times.
Philanthopist: Gave away 10,000 Gold via trade window.
Monster Combo: Killed 50 or more enemies within 20 seconds. (for the AOEers)
gundamxzero Aug 7th 2008 4:55PM
I think you misread zanzi, they are opening it up for people to make mods(like quartz, bongos, etc) not user created achievements.
Phil Aug 7th 2008 5:17PM
Regardless, he has some nice ideas for Achievements there.
Zanzi Aug 7th 2008 5:38PM
Ah... bummer. I guess I need to L2read,nub! I guess realistically, it would be difficult to track player-created achievements unless there was a *massive* addition to the API. Oh well, it was a nice daydream while it lasted. :-)
Zakk Aug 7th 2008 3:46PM
Hmmm, achievement addons sound interesting. I can't imagine what people will think up. Sounds exciting.
epsilon343 Aug 7th 2008 3:50PM
It'd be nice if they'd confer some titles that you could put on yourself, just something simple to say "I killed Onxyia" or "I explored all of Azeroth."
I remember in the LotRO beta they had the titles and I liked how there was some sort of reward for grinding above and beyond the normal quest chains.
PeeWee Aug 7th 2008 5:35PM
yeah, I can see them already - with goldspam and obscenities.
STereo Aug 7th 2008 4:02PM
This sounds really cool as does a lot about WOTLK. But I don't care. I'm not going to Northrend unless Class Balance gets the serious attention it needs. From what I read in the beta forums, that is not happening.
g8rCody Aug 7th 2008 4:05PM
QQ more... you must play a mage
Salty Aug 7th 2008 4:26PM
Classes aren't balanced 4 months before the expansion /might/ /possibly/ come out, that's just terrible! Meanwhile WoW sites are reporting blue comments and patch notes about complete re-workings of class mechanics on a near daily basis. Who has any clue what class balance is like on the beta? The BGs, Arenas and PvP zones aren't even operational yet. You can't even get your level 80 skills and talents. There's no min/maxing yet because the trees are changing as frequently as your boxers (and even if you're a disgusting slob, that's still relatively often). They're still fixing clipping on map terrain, placeholder textures, quest dialogues and NPC bugs. They're throwing ideas around in a board room right now pondering your fate at this very moment, so sit back, have a coke and wait for good news...
From every angle, the game dynamics are changing, and every negative comment I see would be better spent if it were turned into a constructive suggestion on the beta forums. If you really want your class to get some feature you're dying for, or a counter to whatever class is your eternal bain, there is no better time than now to stop wasting time on pessimsim and put an idea out there for discussion.
Salty Aug 7th 2008 4:14PM
At face value, achievements seem sort of a vanity feature, like what player housing would have wound up being (hey come check out my boss kill mantles!) and/or extreme boredom grinds. But I think it will be a forced solution to the hardcore people who fear their accomplishments are cheapened by the progression 'curve', easier access to instances, gear, etc. It's good because it'll flush out the guy who just wants to feel recognized that he killed Boss-X within so many months, vs. the guy who is genuinely just an elitist prick who can't stand that anybody but his guild is on Y content (whom, IMO should EABOF then DIAF).
It will make so many trolls choke on their words. "You're a nub!" "Oh? Then why did I have a full set of prot warrior T3 pre-BC? Why was my guild first to kill boss 1, 2 and 3?"
It'll also be a great filter for pugs. Whenever I want to a do a heroic, the first thing I do is check a player's gear, spec and reputation with that faction. If achievements are account wide, I can now tell if this guy's alt has done SL a hundred times before I turn him away because he wants to bring his fresh 70. I'm going to have my favorite achievements to look for to determine experience and my red-flag accomplishments to watch out for.
mr. hanky Aug 7th 2008 4:17PM
interesting stuff.
"Kaplan, if you're still up for talking, feel free to chat with us."
Fat chance, lol. You guys single handedly blew the whole alpha thing wide open! battled with blizzard head to head.
Although, it would be nice to see a WoWInsider kaplan interview.
pudds Aug 7th 2008 4:50PM
It sounds great, and I'm even somewhat looking forward to it, but I still can't shake the fact that every announcement makes it sound more and more like an exact clone of the badge system in City of Heroes.
That said, there are only a few things in CoH worth cloning, and the badge system is definitely one of them.
John Aug 7th 2008 5:14PM
Still not excited about achievements. The best thing they could do (other than remove them and work on something more substantial) would be to allow you to trade your achievement points (or whatever they're called) for free game time. Then I'd care enough to actually hunt them down.
PimpyMicPimp Aug 8th 2008 1:59AM
That is the most frightening picture of Kaplan I have ever seen.
The eyes...they bore into my soul.
Finnicks Aug 8th 2008 5:48AM
He looks like Mr. Bean.
Phaegelan Aug 8th 2008 6:49AM
What if... they released something that can make live user mod creators something they can look forward to?
Well, that is my philosophy.
http://www.wowwiki.com/User:Frostworn1822/Achievements
You could never give up. 326 achievements that may... end up on some mod should this come out.
ZaVaZ Aug 8th 2008 1:12PM
I just hope Every one can get all of the achievements. To me it wouldn't make since to have achievements that brand new players / Casual players can never get. Like opening the gates of AQ, or Obtain the title of High Warlord. if you look at the 360, every single achievement can be obtained by every single player. Everything from the tough Defeating at least 53,594 zombies (Dead Rising) to Super easy Off the Boat (GTA4).
What I'm saying is that I wouldn't like to see Achievements for one time world events but Repeating world events is great. Like Kill the Headless horseman. If you couldn't make it one year you can wait till next year