I miss the old way, when achievements were how you unlocked stuff like secret weapons and skins. Now you unlock things with a credit card and achievements are just a skinner box.
the old way, when achievements were how you unlocked stuff like secret weapons and skins
That still happens, which is entirely part of the "FOMO" problem. Players now "need" to take advantage of seasonal achievements or miss out for another year. WoW has meta achievements like "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been" which requires played to earn an achievement from 8 different seasonal events, Xmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Octoberfest, etc and if you miss even just one of the smaller achievements you have to wait until next year for it to come around. For mount collectors this can be particularly annoying since the meta reward is a mount. For completionists it's a similar problem albeit one more focused on earning the achievement rather than the end reward.
The heavy shift to "seasons" in most games is like this and WoW is probably one of the biggest offenders around not just because of the above which can still be continually earned in subsequent years, but limited season only exclusives based around various achievements. Maybe the one saving grace is that these things still aren't purchasable, however what is purchasable in WoW these days is likely magnitudes worse such as those recent mounts requiring either 6 month->en entire year or sub paid, or into the triple digits in price.
Well you can thank Mr. Asmongold for that one. He is the one that took "mount collecting" from a niche thing some of us did for fun in the game into a competitive sport where you had to have every single possible mount to win "mount offs" and be able to pull obscure random and/or rare ones on your opponent.
It was literally one of the reasons he got big, because he kept going viral for winning "mount offs" until people started watching him to see the guy behind it.
Its the reason why WoW started having to have 100+ new mounts per expansion, with them being awarded for every rep, every obscure thing, and having a dozen new ones to grind. So guys like him could feel "epic and better than you" for having a Green Recolor of a common mount.
At least What a Long is so shockingly easy, and has been in the game for nearly 20 years, that its barely even a concern for most people.
I was there when it was brand new, and short of a few hairy specific achievements in it, it was a throwaway background thing you did just to get people engaged with the holiday (that they would ignore otherwise because back then it was just flavor with little reward). No one really stressed on it, and anyone who cared about getting it was gonna play all year anyway. So they just had to spend a few hours in the weeks long holiday to be done with it, and get all the numerous other prizes (the meta title per holiday, the numerous other specific rewards you could buy every year from the holiday vendors).
A much worse version of what you are talking about is the Anniversary/Xmas rewards. Because those are not only just once a year, but they are only that year. If you aren't playing November-December 25th, you just don't get to have it. And it wasn't until like 2022 in that they started letting you get old Christmas gifts as rare drops from a holiday boss, and the Anniversary ones were only available again during the recent 25th event, and only some of them.
The old way was no defined achievements at all. The “achievement” was doing something interesting or stupid in a video game in order to entertain yourself and your friends. Now every behavior is part of a predefined checklist. It’s completely soulless and inverted.
The old way was no defined achievements at all. The “achievement” was doing something interesting or stupid in a video game in order to entertain yourself and your friends. Now every behavior is part of a predefined checklist. It’s completely soulless and inverted.
I miss the old way, when achievements were how you unlocked stuff like secret weapons and skins. Now you unlock things with a credit card and achievements are just a skinner box.
That still happens, which is entirely part of the "FOMO" problem. Players now "need" to take advantage of seasonal achievements or miss out for another year. WoW has meta achievements like "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been" which requires played to earn an achievement from 8 different seasonal events, Xmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Octoberfest, etc and if you miss even just one of the smaller achievements you have to wait until next year for it to come around. For mount collectors this can be particularly annoying since the meta reward is a mount. For completionists it's a similar problem albeit one more focused on earning the achievement rather than the end reward.
The heavy shift to "seasons" in most games is like this and WoW is probably one of the biggest offenders around not just because of the above which can still be continually earned in subsequent years, but limited season only exclusives based around various achievements. Maybe the one saving grace is that these things still aren't purchasable, however what is purchasable in WoW these days is likely magnitudes worse such as those recent mounts requiring either 6 month->en entire year or sub paid, or into the triple digits in price.
Learning about the “mount” meta was shocking. I honestly can’t fathom caring about that shit even a little bit.
Well you can thank Mr. Asmongold for that one. He is the one that took "mount collecting" from a niche thing some of us did for fun in the game into a competitive sport where you had to have every single possible mount to win "mount offs" and be able to pull obscure random and/or rare ones on your opponent.
It was literally one of the reasons he got big, because he kept going viral for winning "mount offs" until people started watching him to see the guy behind it.
Its the reason why WoW started having to have 100+ new mounts per expansion, with them being awarded for every rep, every obscure thing, and having a dozen new ones to grind. So guys like him could feel "epic and better than you" for having a Green Recolor of a common mount.
At least What a Long is so shockingly easy, and has been in the game for nearly 20 years, that its barely even a concern for most people.
I was there when it was brand new, and short of a few hairy specific achievements in it, it was a throwaway background thing you did just to get people engaged with the holiday (that they would ignore otherwise because back then it was just flavor with little reward). No one really stressed on it, and anyone who cared about getting it was gonna play all year anyway. So they just had to spend a few hours in the weeks long holiday to be done with it, and get all the numerous other prizes (the meta title per holiday, the numerous other specific rewards you could buy every year from the holiday vendors).
A much worse version of what you are talking about is the Anniversary/Xmas rewards. Because those are not only just once a year, but they are only that year. If you aren't playing November-December 25th, you just don't get to have it. And it wasn't until like 2022 in that they started letting you get old Christmas gifts as rare drops from a holiday boss, and the Anniversary ones were only available again during the recent 25th event, and only some of them.
The old way was no defined achievements at all. The “achievement” was doing something interesting or stupid in a video game in order to entertain yourself and your friends. Now every behavior is part of a predefined checklist. It’s completely soulless and inverted.
There wasn't an in-game checklist, but unlocks basically worked the same.
The old way was no defined achievements at all. The “achievement” was doing something interesting or stupid in a video game in order to entertain yourself and your friends. Now every behavior is part of a predefined checklist. It’s completely soulless and inverted.