If you’ve played any games on Xbox Live, Steam or the PS3, then you should be familiar with an achievement system that allows you to compare your in-game accomplishments with other players. We’ve discussed adding a system like this to EQII for quite some time and today we’d like to announce that this system will be coming soon. How does the Achievement System work?EverQuest II will start off with hundreds of achievements in all areas of game play. These will include achievements related to combat, tradeskills, exploration, harvesting, you name it! Similar to the quest system, the game will recognize when you do something that updates an achievement. When you’ve completed all the requirements for an achievement, you and the players around you will be notified of your accomplishment. Some achievements might even reward you with titles or other items. Each achievement will have a point value based on the difficulty of earning the achievement. Your overall point score will serve as a quick method of comparing your accomplishments with other players. You’ll also be able to view the achievements of other players simply by inspecting them.We already have Achievements in the game. What will the system be called?This has been a source of discussion for quite a long time internally. We’ve gone through many different names and none of them just feel right to us. After lots of debate, we felt the best thing for the game, long term, would be to bite the bullet and rename the existing achievement system. So the existing achievements that you earn through achievement XP will inherit the name from EverQuest Live and become the Alternate Advancement System. You’ll continue to earn “AA” points the same way, and can spend those points in your “AA” trees. We hope this will be an easy transition as many players are already familiar with this name. The new system will be referred to as the Achievement System, and “Achievements” are the badges or trophies that you earn by completing tasks around the world of Norrath. We also plan on converting the existing “Slayer” quests into the new Achievement System since they are virtually the same concept.
What do you think?Our goal with the Achievement System is to give you another method of progression through the game. It’s a great system for quantifying your accomplishments and encourages friendly competition between players. We think this will be a fun addition to EQII and would like to hear your feedback. So, let us know what you think!
( Below are the answers to some of the questions that have come up since my original post. )
Rewards
As far as rewards, please don't get hung up on them and if they'll be game-breaking or not. We plan on giving rewards for achievements very sparingly. The main reward of the achievement is the completion of the task. We already have a quest system that is designed to reward you for specific deeds. The achievement system is there to track the types of things you'd be doing anyway, like completing quests, killing mobs, clearing zones, etc. So the reward *IS* is the achievement and the points you earn towards your total.
Now, with that disclaimer out of the way, some achievements will offer you rewards. And yes, some of them will be titles. Whether you find titles pointless or not is up to you. Some people like them and they are a nice way to show off something you've done. However, some achievements might be appropriate for rewarding something else, especially if the achievement is difficult to complete. You can most likely expect those rewards to be things such as house items and maybe appearance armor or fluff spells/pets.
Will achievements be retroactive?
Some achievements will be retroactive. Any achievement requiring quest completion will check your quest journal the first time you log in after the achievement system is added. Achievements that require mob kills or exploration events that we track through the AA system will also count towards your achievement progress. Existing slayer quests will be converted to achievements and your kill progress will be retained.
How can you see the list of achievements?
The quest journal will have a new achievements tab that will display all achievements (completed and not completed) by category. You will also be able to see your progress towards each achievement. In addition, we are modifying the inspection window so you'll be able to see the achievements of other players when you inspect them.
Are you accepting ideas for achievements?
Sure, but no promises that we'll use it. If you're going to suggest some achievements, please follow these guidelines to make them easy for us to spot later on. Limit the text to 1 line per achievement and put them in a bulleted list. Use a light-blue color to separate them from the rest of your text. For Example:
Interesting.
I already call it AAs...I was not aware that it was Achievements prior to this change.
Maybe because I'm an EQ Classic vet?
Rothgar wrote:
Some achievements might even reward you with titles or other items.
While I like the general idea of this, it really hinges on the quoted part, and more specifically the bolded.
I do not want/expect to see anyone getting mythicals or anything out of this, but this has potential as a means to award items that are to be kept rare, but not necessarily kept to raiders.
I would love to see the second best mount for each class avalible via this system (best being a raid drop), I'd love to see getting a specific set of tradeskill and exploration achievements provide the character with a new recipe or two, I'd love to see clearing a hard zone with no deaths provide extra reward to the group/raid.
Until more info is avalible, I can't really think of much more to add.
Deson wrote:
Dig it as long as the rewards stay fluff.
Since it is a representation of a players actions in game, and is only able to be completed once, assuming appropriate tasks are required I see no issue with providing a real reward.
I mean, clearing PoF with no deaths for the first time on a toon is an appropriate task for having a spell upgraded to master level, imo.
Sounds great, unique items as rewards would be great too. Why the guy above me wants only fluff items as rewards is beyond me, everyone has the same chance of obtaining the unlocks so why couldn't the items be good ?
Would you introduce a journal to tick checks off as you go ? or would they remain hidden till you did one ?
Would they be retroactive ?
SOE could add any item they wanted as a reward, as long as the Reward matched the Achievemnt, Killing Every Avatar Acheivement could quite easily reward something better than the current mythical weapon.
Hailing 1000 NPC's maybe not so good to reward a mythical, i mean c'mon seriously...
Some Examples of Acheivements:
Collecting a certain amount of mounts.
Killing every Named in certain dungeons/open dungeons.
Obtaining a certain amount of gold.
Harvesting a certain amount of rares.
Discovery points found.
Number of a certain type of mob killed.
Armor Sets collected.
NPC's Hailed.
Quests Completed.
Number of Paintings Collected.
Number of Collection quests completed.
Shineys harvested.
etc etc I'm sure you could look at Warhammer Online's Tome of Knowledge for some ideas.
Noaani wrote:
Rothgar wrote:Some achievements might even reward you with titles or other items. While I like the general idea of this, it really hinges on the quoted part, and more specifically the bolded.I do not want/expect to see anyone getting mythicals or anything out of this, but this has potential as a means to award items that are to be kept rare, but not necessarily kept to raiders.I would love to see the second best mount for each class avalible via this system (best being a raid drop), I'd love to see getting a specific set of tradeskill and exploration achievements provide the character with a new recipe or two, I'd love to see clearing a hard zone with no deaths provide extra reward to the group/raid.Until more info is avalible, I can't really think of much more to add.
To me, the rewards are not important, its the act of gaining the achievments that is the fun thing here.
That being said, if rewards are beign given, i agree, the majority should be fluff, but those achievments that are very difficult to accomplish (like the clearing PoF example given) would deserve something more.
i don't agree with the specific example, given by Noaani, that the best mounts should be for raiders only. I do agree that the best weapons. armour, even potions and poisons, should be restricted to the raiders as they are the ones facing the hardest foes and need the edge these items give, but stuff like mounts are of use to everyone, not just raiders, and such the best should be available, not easy to get by any means but available, to everyone.
Deson wrote:Dig it as long as the rewards stay fluff.Since it is a representation of a players actions in game, and is only able to be completed once, assuming appropriate tasks are required I see no issue with providing a real reward.I mean, clearing PoF with no deaths for the first time on a toon is an appropriate task for having a spell upgraded to master level, imo.
Once you start giving useful rewards, it's hard to draw lines. Just look at LoN loot cards. Plus, once they stop being fluff they start being required and it starts to suck the fun out of the game and the uniqueness of the accomplishements as everyone fights to do them because of the rewards.
sounds interresting to me , only thing im wondering if i have to do the content all over again to get the points for lets say slaying nameds or doing quests ? if there points questrelated than most older chars cant get them anymore otherwise.
rewardwise i would like to see maybe spezial armor apperance pieces or mounts.
Kalyyn@Splitpaw wrote:
i don't agree with the specific example, given by Noaani, that the best mounts should be for raiders only.
With GU#52, mounts persist through death. This makes them nothing more than an item that has a buff you are able to activate and maintain while it is in your bags.
The best "looking" mount can come from anywhere, that would not concern me at all. A mount with a speed equal to that of any raid dropped mount can come from a long questline or from a heroic encounter, that also wouldn't bother me. If a mount with better combat stats than one avalible from raids begins to be avalible in any non raid manner, that would bother me.
Pitt Hammerfist wrote:
I guess this could be good for comic relief for the first week after the new system is released.
Kordran wrote:
Pitt Hammerfist wrote:NPC's Hailed.I guess this could be good for comic relief for the first week after the new system is released.
You already get a master a month for it!
