Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Everyone of us has had that moment in EVE that made them get out of their chair, look in a general direction and yell **** YEAH. Whether it was volleying a cocky cov-ops with your arty cane or pointed that 2 bil tengu until your friends came and started to ransom it.

EVE is about those moments. They might be of small proportions and have meaning only for you, or they can be of epic proportions and affect an entire region. But knowing how awesome you are is just not enough, you gotta prove it so that anyone who sees you in local chat will know how awesome you are and offer you gifts so you don’t kill them with your awesome ray. How awesome is that?!

So, I give to you, EVE Achievements!

Unlike medals, which must be created by your CEO and then assigned to you, achievements will be created by CCP and be given out to players automatically when certain conditions are met.

When a player receives an achievement, a message is broadcasted in local and corp chat, letting everyone know how awesome you are. Something like:

NiGhTTraX has earned the achievement Chuck Norris.

written with pretty text like GMs can.

Also, the achievements appear in the Decorations tab of your character sheet. Per achievement settings could limit their visibility towards corp/alliance/blue/any players. Furthermore, they should also appear on EVE Gate.

Now I don’t know how hard this would be, but integration with the Steam Works API would be nice so people playing EVE through Steam could also get the achievements in their Steam profile.

Each achievement could have a unique logo associated with it. Something simple but representative. A hulk for being able to fly a hulk. A hulk ripped in two for killing a hulk. A hulk and a wrench for building a hulk. etc.


Here are some examples of achievements:


This achievement will be awarded when you get your first player kill. You should be the one who lays the final blow.



You get this achievement by training and flying each and every ship available in EVE. The number in the parenthesis indicate your current progress, e.g. how many ships you’ve flown so far. If new ships are introduced in the mean time, the achievement can be reset and awarded again once the pilot flies the new ships (he doesn’t have to re-fly every ship, just the new ones).



You have to take damage from 5 different players and not get blown up. Doesn’t matter if you kill them or just warp off, it’s a victory nonetheless. This can later be expanded to greater numbers.



I know some of you would get this achievement in a matter of minutes.




Just an example of an incredibly hard to get achievement. Nonetheless, I'm sure lots of players will like to get it. Com on, say you don't like the idea. I dare you.



Other achievements could include joining/owning a corp/alliance, have outstanding market orders in value exceeding 10 bil, participating in incursions, mining every ore, visiting every system in the game (I know one person who did this, I'm sure he'd like a pretty achievement to prove it) etc.


Now what will these achivements bring to the game? Besides being awesome and a means of proving yourself to New Eden, they are a reason to keep playing the game. Players will grind achievements and will put themselves in more dangerous situations to try and earn achievements. Think of what will a ‘kill someone in 0.0’ achievement do; a hoard of players will go to null sec and start killing everything in their path for that one achievement. Can I hear an ‘ISK sink’?

Moreover, having a list in game with all the achievements, separated by category, will show both new and older players the endless possibilities in EVE. How many times have you logged and had nothing to do but update your training queue and spin your ships a couple of dozen times? Now, you could open that list, pick an achievement and go earn it.

Having played games like Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike: Source and others on Steam, you realize that gaining achievements become itself a purpose. So for all of you out there that don’t have anything left to do in EVE, try becoming the person with the most achievements in the game. That should keep you busy. And I’m sure that a lot of players would become achievement hunters and do nothing else than log everyday and try to earn that darn achievement they’ve been trying for days. More good news for everyone. You’ll see more enthusiastic players getting blown up in their desperate efforts to survive damage from 5 players and earn the ‘Against all odds’ achievements. More players will discover lowsec and null to gain the achievements for those categories. More pew pew, more exploration, more ships getting blown up. All of that has to be good.

Also, this will be an incentive for veterans to re-do all the basic tasks to gain achievements for them. I know that deep down you miss mining in a Bantam and shooting rats in belts. No one believes you anymore that you killed that B.o.B. titan? Well, go find yourself a new titan and blow it up.

I think you've been playing too much TF2 ...

So they'd only play EVE for cheap trinkets like achievements? Such a loss to the game, however will we do without them?

ill be honest i was thinking about this too and think it would be an really good idea. ok fair enough it wont be everyone's cup of tea but i think this could be good for the game in terms of the bigger picture

the list of achievements could be endless and dont have to only be pvp focused there could be achievements that could be exclusive to certain missions if your into that sort of thing lols

but i wouldn't mind a badge of honor saying this pilot has killed 2k ships or something ya know?

I support this. However, there will need to be some sort of safeguard to insure no cheating. I can imagine a corporation buying many different ships and then allowing players to destroy them to get achievements... perhaps they need to be with a stipulation that the combat cannot be with one's own corp or alliance.

I'ld like to see some veteran rewards as well.

1 year old character: Choice of reward like Aura, implants, etc
3 year old character: 1 time skillpoint respec
5 year old character: Choice of Avatar headgear/helmet (Dust 514 style)
10 year old character: Upgraded captain's quarters (2 stories, with an interior station and exterior planetary view)
Lifetime character (a character that was born in the first 12 months of eve): A Imperial/Federation issue faction ship of the players choice

EvE is a sandbox with focus towards expertise and focussing activities for planned choices.

Why do you want to promote generalisation or motivators which afford no reason other than a random achievement.

Keep it real, promote choices and activities to have a point, not just a blind chaotic grind of "I did this cause it was a badge I needed"

Having achievements in game will just show a player what he can achieve in the sandbox. Maybe even motivate him to chose a certain profession to do the achievements for it.

There is the debate that new player, but also veterans, see no interest in playing the game, because it's too hard, because they don't understand it etc. Imagine a new player just finishing the tutorial and a little thingy pops up and tells him he earned his first achievement. Then Aura instructs him about the achievements and soon the new player learns there are a gazillion things you can do in this game. Once choosing a certain achievement he then sets out to earn it. Along his path, he meets players trying to earn that same achievement, he joins a corp that helps in achievement farming etc.

While I believe that achievements would be a way to stimulate new players in exploring the sandbox, older players should find in them an incentive to relive the days when they were just discovering EVE.

Achievements should be made in such a way to promote the activities they represent, not just be some cheap bling on one's profile. Fleet achievements for example would promote team work and some of them should be very difficult to obtain. Think about incursions and how difficult they were at the beginning. But through team work, players have learned to blitz them and now everyone knows how to act in a fleet. Maybe achievements could so something similar. Think of an achievement that has to be earned by being in a fleet and butcher another fleet. People will train PvP to do this and they might get the taste of it and continue doing PvP regardless of achievements.

Bingo! Certain alliances could accept players by the achievements they earned. I mean, com on, if a guy applies for your alliance and has the 'kill 100 titans' achievement, you should give him a shot :)



Skill training related achievements should not be implemented. You kinda have certificates for that. Achievements should be activity related. As for older players that would already be eligible for some achievements, I'll leave this up for debate. My opinion, is that they should not automatically be awarded the achievements. Two reasons for this: the difficulty in looking over the logs and deciding which players are eligible and the motivation to 're-earn' the achievements. Having killed 2 POS is fun. But killing 2 more is even more fun :)

Sorry, but video game "achievements" are a hollow pander to the epeen people who see internet pixels as way of life.

True achievements start in real life and matter only there. Convincing some weak minded gamer earning an "achievement" in a video game is something to aspire to and be proud of is embarrassing.

EVE is entertainment - period. There are many games with achievements available is you want that type of entertainment. WoW is for sure one of them and would be happy to have you play along.

Achievements would obliterate the concept of sandbox. Everyone who cares would pander to specific activities and compare with others if they have similar abilities. They don't matter in EVE for a reason.

This would be yet another distraction for CCP to waste time developing.

If you are really hard up for some badge of lame, have your corp make an award and pin it on...

Too many games have been ruined by half-witted requests for some developer to define the game to the players by scripting "achievements" resulting in player disillusion.



-1

TF2 is not the only game with Achievements.
And believe it or not, Valve didn't invent the Achievement system either. It actually started on the XBox 360.

Forgive me if you already knew these, but based on the way you wrote your post, I assumed you didn't.