Achievement Hunting

Learn all about how to boost your gamer score and acquire the best trophies.

Transcript

1. ACHIEVEMENT HUNTING PELLICON Levi D. Smith March 2012 @GaTechGrad
2. What are Achievements? •Awards for completing tasks in games •Points awarded for achievements completed •Displayed on gamer profile •XBox 360 launch in November 2005 delivered first online achievement system •Increases playability of games •Systems with achievement systems ◦XBox 360 ◦Playstation 3 (Trophies) ◦PC (Steam, WoW, Starcraft)
3. Types of Achievements •Story related ◦ Unlocked as the player progresses through the game •Collectables ◦ Requires a number of items to be found •Multiplayer ◦ Must have another player; Boosting •Time based ◦ Must complete a task in a limited amount of time ◦ Must complete a task on a certain date •Missable ◦ The achievement is no longer available after a certain point in the game ◦ The game must be restarted from the beginning to get the achievement •Hidden ◦ The title or details of the achievement are not displayed on the game's achievement listing ◦ Usually for achievements that may contain spoilers •Viral ◦ Acquired from someone else who has the achievement
4. XBox Live Achievements •Gamerscore awarded for each completed achievement •XBox 360 Retail games - 1000 possible points •XBox Live Arcade games - 200 possible points •DLC - varies from 50 to 750 points •Games for Windows - same as XBox 360 Retail games •Windows Phone 7 •Demos - achievements do not unlock
5. Gamerscore per Achievement •Least points for achievement ◦0, multiple games ◦Failure awards •Least non-zero for achievement ◦1, multiple games •Most points for achievement ◦500, Brave & FIFA World Cup 2006 ◦400, Madden NFL 06
6. Achievements per Game •Fewest number of achievements in a game ◦Arcade: 4 ▪ NCAA Basketall 09: March Madness Edition ◦Retail: 5 ▪ 2006 FIFA World Cup ▪ Avatar: The Burning Earth ▪ College Hoops 2K6 ▪ CSI: Hard Evidence ▪ Major League Baseball 2K6 ▪ NBA 2K6 ▪ NHL 2K6 •Most achievements in a game ◦99, Half Life 2: The Orange Box ◦Typically 50 is the most without DLC
7. Time to Complete •Fastest time to acquire all achievements ◦Avatar: The Burning Earth ◦About 1 minute ◦http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszPXq0Vho0 •Slowest time to acquire all achievements ◦Probably Final Fantasy XI ◦Estimated 2+ years ◦MMO; Level multiple jobs to 75
8. TrueAchievements •Website devoted to calculating the difficulty of achievements •TrueAchievement (TA) ratio is assigned to all achievements •TA Ratios ◦ 1.0 Easiest - Everyone who has played the game has the achievement ◦ 1.5 Normal - Can usually be acquired in a few hours ◦ 2.0 Difficult - May take days ◦ 6.0+, Most difficult - May not be obtainable •TA Ratio for an achievement fluctuates ◦ Value goes down as more people unlock an achievement •View list of achievements acquired by game ◦User guides easily accessible for each achievement
9. Listing Achievements • Using TrueAchievements website, a list of all achievements can be displayed for each game • Can sort by: ◦ TA Points ◦ Gamerscore ◦ TA Ratio ◦ Completed date • User submitted guides for many achievements ◦ Guides have up/down votes
10. Finding Easiest Games • Site Pages > Games • Sort by TA ratio • Can filter by Genre, Sub Genre, Platform • My Pages > MyGames ◦ See only the easiest games you've played
11. Finding Easiest Achievements • My Pages > My Easy Achievements ◦ A quick reference for easily obtainable achievements ◦ Only shows games that you have played (at least one achievement)
12. Ranking Methods •Total Gamerscore ◦World leader currently has over 665,000 •Most games with 100% achievements unlocked •Highest completion percentage •Total number of achievements •360voice.com - standing information
13. Playstation Trophies •Trophies began appearing in PS3 games in July 2008 ◦Check online or back of box •Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum ◦One Platinum per game for acquiring all other trophies •Trophies must be installed •Manual sync required for trophies to appear online •Trophy levels •XBox Achievement guides for cross-platform games
14. Steam Achievements •Steam is VALVE's online electronic game store and distribution system •Achievements are available for some PC games installed through Steam •No points or level associated to achievements •Shift-Tab to view achievements in-game
15. World of Warcraft Achievements •Began in October 2008, before release of Wrath of the Lich King expansion •Points associated to each achievement •Guild achievements •Achievement categories ◦ General ◦ Quests ◦ Exploration ◦ Player vs Player ◦ Dungeons and Raids ◦ Professions ◦ Reputation ◦ World Events ◦ Feats of Strength
16. Starcraft Achievements •Built in with Starcraft 2, which was released in July 2010 •Interface similar to WoW achievements •Points associated to each achievement •Achievement categories ◦ Campaign ◦ Exploration ◦ Custom Game ◦ Cooperative ◦ Quick Match ◦ Combat ◦ Feats of Strength
17. What about Nintendo Wii? •No universal online achievement system, however some games feature custom achievement systems ◦ Metriod Prime 3 Corruption awards tokens for completing tasks ◦ Smash Bros Brawl - Vault Challenges •Wii U will have some sort of achievement system, according to Ubisoft •Will be able to track the progress of friends in Wii U games
18. Social Networking •Games such as Words with Friends have achievements •Appear in Facebook's Game timeline •FourSquare: Badges for completing "checkins" at various locations
19. Roadmaps •Best to check the roadmap before starting a new game ◦ Avoid missable achievements ◦ Discover stackable achievements ◦ Online achievements for older games •XBox360achievements.org / ps3trophies.org ◦Search for the game, then select forum ◦Most games have a "Road Map" thread
20. Gamercards •XBox •Playstation •Raptr Sites Offering Gamercards 360voice.com my360stats.com trueachievements.com lusogamer.com ratptr.com and more http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/showthread.php?t=296857
21. Comparing Achievements • Using True Achievements website ◦ Select Game ◦ Then select the person to compare • Achievements can also be compared from XBox dashboard, PS3 dashboard, and Raptr website
22. Prizes •XBox - $1 million to pitch perfect game in MLB 2K11 ▪http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTKk0JzCyro ▪ http://tv.ign.com/articles/115/1154857p1.html •Steam - Great Gift Pile ◦Cupons or Coal (chance to win grand prize)
23. First to Finish •Listing of the person who first completed all achievements in a game ◦ http://www.my360stats.com/games/first2finish/
24. What not to Do •Don't mod console to unlock achievements •Will be labeled as "Cheater" on XBox Live and Gamerscore set to zero •Detection methods ◦Online achievements unlocked offline ◦Achievements unlocked out of order ◦Report/complaint filed by other players ◦Beware of used consoles ◦ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxumqlBIn24 ◦ http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/26/microsoft-labels-autistic-boy-a-cheater-on-xbox-live. aspx •Built in game cheat codes usually disable achievements in games; Won't be labeled a cheater for using those
25. Free Games with Achievements •XBox Live ◦ Aegis Wing, 200 GS ◦ Yaris, 200 GS ◦ Dash of Destruction, 200 GS ◦ Doritos Crash Course, 200 GS ◦ Kinect Labs - Bobble Head, Build a Buddy, Googly Eyes, Kinect Me 50 GS each •Steam ◦ Spiral Knights ◦ Team Fortress 2 ◦ Rise of Immortals
26. XBox Live - Awards •Similar to achievements, but items for the player's avatar are unlocked instead of Gamerscore points
27. How Achievements are Implemented • XNA library • SignedInGamer class ◦ AwardAchievement() ◦ BeginAwardAchievement() ◦ BeginGetAchievements() ◦ GetAchievements() ◦ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.gamerservices.signedingamer_members. aspx
28. Resources • www.xbox360achievements.org - roadmaps (use the forums for each game) • trueachievements.com - finding achievement difficulty, news page, achievement solutions, popular achievements • raptr.com - time played, achievements completed • 360voice.gamerdna.com - badges, streaks, ach types, position deltas • my360stats.com - graphs