Acheivements are gonna be a ♥♥♥♥♥ for this one.

[Outlaw]

1000 commendations for each planet is going to be rough. I doubt very many people actually read others stories although I hope I'm wrong.

For my part, I'll try and read a few every now and then and as long as they aren't just someone mashing the keyboard nonsense, I'll give them a commendation for the effort even if they don't fit my literary tastes.

I've only written one story so far. It's on Byron's World. It's called The Icey Forest if anybody is interested.

[Ziba]

The dream is that if you get that achievement, it's a very real accomplishment as a writer that you should be extremely proud of.

[Outlaw]

Originally posted by Ziba:

The dream is that if you get that achievement, it's a very real accomplishment as a writer that you should be extremely proud of.

I'm not saying it's difficult because I'm too poor a writer, I'm saying it's difficult because the game lacks a playerbase. Much less a big one that reads the stories. The median playtime according to steamspy is 23 minutes.

[Dodo]

-.-

[jungle.james]

It's not my place to tell you what to do but 25 seems far more reasonable.

[Nostalginaut]

Truth.
I mean, I spammed the heck out of this game to writer-friends, and even used it as part of the English class I taught a few years ago (and my writing club for a year or so after that). I still forward people to it now and again, and log in...periodically.

No. One. Plays. :(

[newman]

25 seems very reasonable considering the playerbase.

Have you made any thought on lowering the requirements?

[geerky42]

I agree. This game is not going to be as popular as Minecraft so 1000 is obviously unrealistic.

[⌈ Pineapple ⌋]

Some of the popular stories I read aren't...stories they're just...weird and crass descriptions of the pictures that show up. I mean to each his own I guess, but I was kind of hoping to see some actual stories, even one's that may be more of a poem than a story (or both).

[Nostalginaut]

I gave copies of this game as an award for a poetry contest to my ninth-graders. Only one didn't like it; the remaining ones thought it was cool, but two actually complained (uh, to me...) that there's no way they'll ever get the achievements. Knowing one of them pretty well, it seems to be a driving factor in what sells him on games.

In fact, the concept of "achievements" really seem to factor in to what motivate a lot of kiddos like that. Short-term rewards>long-term growth, and all; our bloody district is even encouraging us to game-ify our curriculum with achievements. Surely some greater player/writer base, especially among a younger audience, could find appeal in getting these more easily.

[Outlaw]

Originally posted by CrashMagnet:

I gave copies of this game as an award for a poetry contest to my ninth-graders. Only one didn't like it; the remaining ones thought it was cool, but two actually complained (uh, to me...) that there's no way they'll ever get the achievements. Knowing one of them pretty well, it seems to be a driving factor in what sells him on games.

In fact, the concept of "achievements" really seem to factor in to what motivate a lot of kiddos like that. Short-term rewards>long-term growth, and all; our bloody district is even encouraging us to game-ify our curriculum with achievements. Surely some greater player/writer base, especially among a younger audience, could find appeal in getting these more easily.

I'm not a youngin' exactly (mid 20's) and acheivements are definetely somewhat of a driving force for me especially with smaller indies like this.

I won't play a bad game just for achievements and I disagree about the short term rewards thing because they're worthless (especially on PC with S.A.M.) and some of them take quite awhile whther due to grind or skill level required.

The reason I like achievments is because I suppose I'm goal oriented. I need a reason or finish line when I play videogames. I'm someone who plays GTA to finish all the mission rather than enter a bunch of cheat codes and mess around. I trend towards singleplayer games that have endings versus multiplayer only games.

Achievements are essentially extended goals. Like trying to beat Donkey Kong country while collecting all the golden collectibles. Only with achievements you have a "marker" to make note of it.

[zaphodikus]

Any "writer" who relies on people with a steam login to vote them up is never going to get published while waiting for 1000 likes. I doubt that the volumes make it realistic.

[zaphodikus]

I just realised, that for a sample size of 200 persons who have played this game, 1 person has all 3 acomplishments. Or, the stats are suggesting that either 3 individuals have achieved a badge each based on 600 people buying the game, or my 1st asserion holds water. Neither of which makes sense, since you need 1000 likes, and 1000 owners of the game on steam, which would suggesting another platform is providing likes/promotes.

[Nostalginaut]

Zero writers are relying on this game and other people in it for getting published.

[Ottofyre]

Originally posted by Ziba:

The dream is that if you get that achievement, it's a very real accomplishment as a writer that you should be extremely proud of.

I strongly disagree - it's an accomplishment as a social networker, not a writer. The two require completely different skillsets. Getting 1000 commendations on Steam doesn't even mean that your writing was good, it just means you convinced people to commend it. Because there is no mechanism in place in the game to encourage people to read the stories to begin with, people have to campaign to get others to read their story - and when people are specifically reading your story because you asked them to they're more likely to commend it regardless of quality.

Also, browsing through the most popular stories in-game -- the most commendations I could find anyone having was 705 on a story that is 2 1/2 years old - interesting note, according to that same person's profile page they have 0 commendations for that world. The next greatest number of commendations I could find was someone with 35, yet their profile page says they have only 8 on that world.

These achievements aren't just challenging - they appear to be broken and impossible on a technical level as well as a conceptual one. I would recommend removing the achievements completely, especially if they are broken as they seem. But even if turns out that there was something else that caused those discrepancies and the achievements aren't broken - I still strongly recommend removing the achivements. The purpose of the game, to my knowledge, is to encourage people to write - it's counterproductive to put in achievements that act as immediate discouragement.

--

This reminds me a bit of the story behind the novel "Valley of the Dolls", one of the best selling books in history despite not being very good.. The author was able to catapault the book to #1 because of their skill at manipulating the industry, not because of their ability as a writer.

[BlueCat]

Originally posted by zaphodikus:

I just realised, that for a sample size of 200 persons who have played this game, 1 person has all 3 acomplishments. Or, the stats are suggesting that either 3 individuals have achieved a badge each based on 600 people buying the game, or my 1st asserion holds water. Neither of which makes sense, since you need 1000 likes, and 1000 owners of the game on steam, which would suggesting another platform is providing likes/promotes.

I'm pretty sure it's just someone who used an external program to unlock the achievements for him.