71 replies to this topic

[SleepyGuyy]

please be aware that as of this post (Thursday, August 25th, 2011) this is not confirmed, simply speculation.
Do you want it? why or why not?
What would it be called, or should they just be called TrophChievements?
How would it work?How would you be notified?
Will Nintendo even implement a network system like sony or microsoft?

[Hank Hill]

If they have it, that's good and great. But I quite honestly think it's foolish for people who judge Nintendo solely on the fact that there's no achievements...I'd rather have more game than get some arbitrary medal for swinging link's sword 100 times. :/

[Caius Casshern Sins]

I say sure the system could have one so it could bring the people who love to collect them. Maybe it will be called Wii U medals.

[Auzzie Wingman]

Hmm...
It's possible.

Nintendo (I think more specifically, Miyamoto) said he really didn't care for that sort of thing. Like it distracts the player from the core of the gameplay or something. Like the goals are optional, and shouldn't be the main focus of the gameplay experience, but usually do.

However, we now know that EA Games is closely working and assisting with the online functionality with Nintendo on the Wii U. So we are more likely to receive this system than if it was just Nintendo.

Personally, I'd like these sorts of things to become optional. I wouldn't want devs to feel they need to do it if they don't want to. You get games where there are terrible ideas for achievements just because there isn't anything open to them. I wouldn't feel rewarded if I earned something for completing a prologue level.

I suppose time will tell. I hope Nintendo adopts Medals. They used them in a lot of their games so far like Mario and Sonic, SSF43D, Mercs3D, FFCC: The Crystal Bearers among others. Being medals, they are also upgradable.

[Wertville]

I actually don't mind achievements, unlike many of my fellow Ninty Fanboys. (Even though I've only really experienced it in flash games )

Though I would like to:
A) Not have it interrupt cutscenes and important events
B ) Keep beginner level ones to a minimum
and
C) Not have them for DLC exclusive content, unless it's a free trail game, like a few are nowadays.

That's just what I would need to make sure that it isn't an annoying amount of them... But a neat D would be having at least 5 crazy achievements per game. Now I can finally get rewarded for becoming the golden chicken >: D

EDIT: I hate teh smiley >.>

Edited by Wertville, 25 August 2011 - 05:56 PM.

[Andy]

It really wouldn't hurt my feelings if they didn't include it, but I guess it would be nice for those who like them. My only request is that there is an option to turn in game notifications that pop up when you get them off. Nothing is as annoying as when I'm playing a game on my PS3 and that little pop up shows up along with that little chiming sound effect during an important cutseen. It really brakes the immersion off the game.

[Auzzie Wingman]

Nothing is as annoying as when I'm playing a game on my PS3 and that little pop up shows up along with that little chiming sound effect during an important cutseen. It really brakes the immersion off the game.

As a person who doesn't have either console, this sounds like the crappiest of crap crap. I suppose it would be much more acceptable if they made it so that when you press the Home Button, it says "You've got new medals". Like in a way where you get your in-game unlocked stuff at the end of a CoD match, rather than during.

Edited by Auzzie Wingman, 26 August 2011 - 12:27 AM.

[Caius Casshern Sins]

A medal may even appear on the screen of the controller without making any sounds. And maybe each time we earn a Medal we earn something like play coins ( they will just be one way to earn them).

[Wertville]

As a person who doesn't have either console, this sounds like the crappiest of crap crap. I suppose it would be much more acceptable if they made it so that when you press the Home Button, it says "You've got new medals". Like in a way where you get your in-game unlocked stuff at the end of a CoD match, rather than during.

Good idea Auzzie. It would be much nicer to just have a 'New Medals' screen in the home menu. Especially because it gives off a chance to actually get a good look at it, and maybe figure out how you got it

[AMAC]

A trophy/achievement system on the Wii U would be very nice, but I don't think it would be essential. I wouldn't count on their being one though, as Nintendo said that their fans didn't want one when asked about the 3DS' lack of achievements.

[Waller]

I was thinking that maybe we could get a percentage system. We would get an average percentage in our "U cards" and a completion percentage in each game, if this is not enough, developers would have the choice of putting in-game achievements that would add to the total percentage of completion and could be shown in our "U cards".
Additionally, we could get ranks like the ones of this forum, but taking into account the evolution of the characters. For example, I have 50 in-game achievements and an average of a 100% So I get a modern Bob-omb (Meaning: from the latest game), but if I had an average of 0% I would get the first Bob-omb that came out. Prefer classic over modern? You could invert the order.
If you didn't want Mario characters, you could choose from a variety of different IP's from Nintendo, and these could just be the built-in ones.
Devs could add ranks from their own games, they could install them through the game disc or put them through download in the store.

Nintendo said they don't want to tell people how to play their games, if they did this, they wouldn't need to tell us how to play our games, and we would get a deeper achievement system.

[bloop2424]

I think it would be cool, Maybe we could earn a certain amounts of points per achievement which could be used at the Wii U shop or whatever the name iwll be

[Auzzie Wingman]

I think it's just going to be call the Nintendo eShop.

[Narcidius]

I'm glad someone brought up this topic! I am personally a big "trophy hound" on Xbox... but I'm also clear-headed enough to admit that this seriously contradicts my stated love of immersion in story and love of gaming for gaming's sake. The two loves are kind of parallel, but I find myself enjoying both pursuits almost equally.

I think that Nintendo should include an achievement system (even if it only tracks progress in the background, or only for online play), and I like the idea of using upgradeable medals with associated coin values. Achievements serve a social networking function, if nothing else, and they provide a fun incentive for replaying the game far past its standard life (in this case... the more outlandish the requirements for the achievement, the better). Playing games is fun, regardless of any "rewards" doled out for playing. But everyone likes a little swag to pin on for bragging purposes, even if you're only bragging to yourself. It's like tally marks on an airplane cockpit, or button-collecting at Disneyland...

[giggity3000]

I love trophies. Some of you complain about the break in immersion of a game cause of the sound but i would rather not have to pause my game when i'm trying to see if i got an achievement i was going for. A good idea for people who don't want it popping up is a turn off button & it's not as annoying as you think since most Ps360 games have it pop up after a level ends, and it's tiny and at the corner or bottom of the screen.

[Nintendo.fan]

I think trphies/achievments are very important they extend teh game life and are actually fun to make. I hope Wii U have something like that, i think the name wil be medals or coins,

[Ponkotsu]

My take: Rambling, sometimes redundant, written while a bit on the mentally exhausted side. Enjoy whatever sense you can make of it, haha.

I think it's kind of inevitable at this point. Nintendo's been playing at the idea for a while, despite what Miyamoto and representatives have said. Even on the Nintendo Channel, they made a point of introducing our own small gameplay stats section displaying our collection and playtimes of all the games in the database - which unfortunately is still missing a lot of VC, Wii disc, and WiiWare games - and letting us check out that information in displayed stat lists, in addition to awarding games various medals based on voted user ratings. These features have evolved respectively into the Activity Log on the 3DS with crowns to earn for multiple things for 3DS and DS games and the eShop's star-based game ratings.

For a while, even Metroid Prime Hunters actually had a site set up where we could link up to display our stats on a profile card online, so Nintendo has dabbled in a card system like Sony and Microsoft's Live and PSN cards. And NintendoWiFi.com used to be a Nintendo online gaming hub website displaying various online play stats and your own library of games played online when you logged in, too. Nintendo had dedicated things like this in the past before they stepped things back when they should have plunged ahead. They're finally starting to plunge ahead now.

At any rate, I envision the addition of achievements to the 3DS Activity Log through a firmware update, adding pages for those for each game, building on the little crowns based on gameplay session and time stats that we can already earn as sort of mini-achievements. Something similar on the Wii U would make sense, with connections to profiles on third party online systems too. Ideally, even when you're offline, you'd be able to earn achievements - sending everything to the Activity Log - and then synch your stats through the Activity Log to your online profile when you go online. Word already is that the Wii U's online is supposedly going to be able to do everything the PS3 and 360's online can, and it would make sense to make achievements a standard. Third parties have already confirmed achievements outright, and I suspect we'll be able to view those on our Nintendo online profiles when linked to third parties' services, bringing all our data conveniently together. But it makes complete sense for Nintendo to have their own central system for their games and for third parties to easily work with, though it certainly sounds fine for them to be optional if third parties would prefer not to have any.

Adding some achievements to channels and so forth could be nice rewards for fully exploring and using each channel too, earning little knickknacks for your profile for paying attention to the help cat in the Wii's news and photo channels, the parakeets in 3DS Sound, a little shopping bag character achievement or pin of some sort for eShop activity as a little thank-you, and so forth. I've elaborated on linking achievements into potential virtual Mii world content over in my Miitropolis thread, too, of course.

As it stands, while Miyamoto himself has voiced a personal distaste for achievements and Nintendo argued for why they didn't want them in the 3DS, numerous Wii and 3DS games have in-game achievement systems - including first party Nintendo releases and first party backed games (Including major games they invested in like Monster Hunter Tri and Dragon Quest IX - I suspect X will have hundreds of accolades to earn too) - and given that they've already gone as far as to do everything but outright make a centralized system for them on an online profile, I'd say it's more or less already inevitable, especially after how far they went with them in Sakurai games even last gen like Smash Bros. and Kirby's Air Ride. (And these games predated achievements as a standard system, no less. Nintendo had them before anyone else.) I wouldn't be shocked if Kid Icarus: Uprising had an achievement grid to fill out for things too, as that's another Sakurai game. And with achievements a standard feature everywhere but Nintendo systems and frequently adopted in every way - even by Nintendo themselves - but for the online profile and central system to collect them in, it makes complete sense to finally add them on the 3DS to further counter the Vita and patch them into previous physical release games, channels including the StreetPass Mii Channel, AR Games, 3DSWare releases, and possibly DSiWare and VC games.

So while Nintendo's talked down achievements, they do have a very visible history with them in the past decade. We're going to be seeing a central profile system of some kind comparable to the PS3 and 360, already confirmed, and third parties have already confirmed that we're at least going to see centralized achievements through their own services linking up with Nintendo's, if not an outright centralized one. For the sake of convenience, simplicity, and delivering a feature people have been asking for since its unveiling elsewhere - that has made repeated appearance in Nintendo titles, and even games like Star Fox 64 3D have medals to earn, just as Mario Kart has trophies and license stamps - it makes sense to just go ahead and connect all of these things together on our upcoming centralized Nintendo profile and to bring them to the 3DS rather than making us wait another generation before they hit Nintendo portables.

They can give us a centralized eShop account too, connecting everything together with our shops' purchase records with Club Nintendo - assuming that the new online system isn't going to be an outright expansion of Club Nintendo itself anyway - and give us all of these stats to collect and grow on our profiles through the 3DS and Wii U's respective Activity Logs, perhaps also carrying over at least the basic stat displays for Wii and DS games - like we've seen with DS games in the Activity Log - to show what basic playtime/session crowns we've earned for those too, as a way to display our Wii and DS game collections on our profiles as well and see what our friends have.

Ubisoft has already confirmed progress/completion percentage bar displays for Ghost Recon Online on the Wii U, too. It would be pretty great to see something like that for other games, too, as Waller pointed out. The more content there is to earn and display between online social elements and actual game content to flesh out our online profiles an dmake them very much into our own personal Nintendo gamer records and spaces, the better. That sort of thing only encourages people to spend more time interacting online, and to appeal to a mass market audience, you want to go ambitious and pleasant there - give people every reason to keep coming online.

I've enjoyed achievements and so forth myself on sites like Kongregate, in Wii and DS games that have them - Crystal Bearers being a blast to collect medals in, and I'm working on titles in Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes at the moment - and on Steam. So seeing them as something to collect and to potentially earn play coins and Miitropolis service-type content with for a virtual Mii space would be ideal and an addictive additional thing to do. But options for those not into these things are key. As others in this thread have already addressed, it should be easy to shut off any sounds or displays made or to regulate them to the Wii U tablet screen or, as suggested, a convenient Home menu display when suspending a game as so to make it easy to either turn off achievement notifications entirely and otherwise keep them from being intrusive for those bothered by that.

Medals and Coins - as others have noted - seem like very likely candidates for the little meta-objects to collect. I could see the Crowns we've also seen prominently as of late in Nintendo games and channels also being a likely candidate, with bronze, silver, and gold. Accomplishments could be a bit of a longer shot, though they used that terminology quite a bit on the Wii U message board when displaying what we did on the system that day. Such a listing on the Wii U could showcase what we earned that day too, potentially divided up for each user by Mii/account.

Now that Nintendo's more fully embracing and focusing on online, with a huge leap forward confirmed coming on the Wii U and the 3DS's online still an evolving work in progress as they release updates and build up its functionality some more, it just makes sense to get the addition of a centralized achievement system across the Wii U, 3DS, and future platforms to give us a little something else to collect and display on our forthcoming new online accounts. They should be incentivizing customers to go online every day with tons of stuff to earn, and working on updating their software and already available content - including the free built-in games like the AR Games, Face Raiders, and StreetPass gaming - to give us little rewards for our online profiles too. Starting us off with earning things through free software could act like a gateway drug, in a manner of speaking, to get players hooked on earning things and getting them on their online profile. Likewise, my feeling is that whatever simple, mass appealing packed-in Mii games that will likely come with the Wii U should also have online play and a major goal with the system should be to try to get every user online as soon as possible after hooking the system up, and the same goes for the 3DS as they flesh out its online features more. Trying to get people into playing games like Wii Sports online with faraway friends and family while voice-chatting on day one would be an ideal goal for the system.

At any rate, a list of Nintendo platform games I'm aware of that include various achievement systems of sorts:

Wii games: Adventure Island: The Beginning (WiIWare. A straight-up achievement list filled out as you play and earn them.), Ant Nation (Also WiiWare. A full list of 203 history entries to learn as you hit various milestones while playing.), Baroque (Baroque titles), Bonsai Barber, Data East Arcade Classics (Classic arcade games with achievements and Mii-based on-system leaderboards. SNK's arcade collection on the Wii has achievements too.), Dawn of Discovery (Achievements for each map/chapter), de Blob (Numerous medals per stage), Dragon Quest Swords (Titles earned as you level up and get stronger), Dragon Quest X on both Wii and Wii U (Just like IX, which had over 360 accolades to earn), Elebits (A ridiculous number of odd little things to unlock through accomplishments tracked), Endless Ocean: Blue World, Epic Mickey (The pins are essentially achievements for various accomplishments as well. Rewards for fully exploring the world and taking every path you can in each run.), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, GoldenEye 007, MadWorld (I seem to recall this having some sort of achievement challenge system.), Jett Rocket (Achievements all across the WiiWare game.), Mario Kart (Has effectively always had achievements through earned trophies, but they've only been adding more challenges, license stamps, etc. in more recent iterations to give you even more achievement-like content to earn.), Mega Man 9 and 10 (Challenges), Metroid Prime 3 / Trilogy (Medals galore), Monster Hunter Tri (Various little awards earned for major milestones and accomplishments on a little menu.), NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Little achievement icons earned for your dream journal stat menus), Onechanbara (A fair amount of unlockable progression is pretty much achievement-style), Opoona (Basically all the 50+ licenses you spend much of the game earning as sidequests and a few required quests are an in-game achievement system for earning things and doing everything there is to do in the game world.), Pop (As well as its DSiWare counterpart Pop+ Solo. All have medals to unlock and display to friends.), Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes (Titles), all the Sonic games I've played so far in some form (Including Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing), Spyborgs (Medals), Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People (Every episode is loaded with stats and achievements to earn and load up on on a fun little display to encourage you to fully explore and do everything possible in each episode.), Super Smash Bros. Brawl, more recent Super Mario games have been slapping crowns all over everything to indicate completion for an achievement system of sorts in icon form - the first Galaxy even encouraged us to take screenshots of our stats and send them to friends to compare stats like we would on an online profile on Live or PSN. It's a wonder they removed that in Galaxy 2 and haven't done more to encourage that kind of stat sharing and comparing yet.), Super Smash Bros. Brawl (The absolutely massive challenge grid.), Tetris Party/Deluxe (Achievements to earn in both the WiiWare and physical Deluxe releases of the game.), Trauma Team (Medals to take on with challenges in the postgame), Wario Land: Shake It! (Challenge icons on every stage), We Ski / We Ski & Snowboard (I suspect both Go Vacation and Fishing Resort will have them as a big component too), Wii Sports (Medals), Wii Sports Resort (Stamps in addition to medals), Xenoblade Chronicles (Has an absolutely massive in-game achievement system, the likes of which could very easily set a trend in first party adventure and RPG games.), Zack & Wiki (Largely in the form of ranks and titles to advance through as you play and earn points, while there's an insane amount of unlockables and treasures to collect, displayed in books a la achievements)

DS games: Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (Hundreds of medals to earn for various accomplishments), Aura-Aura Climber (Dirt cheap first party Nintendo DSiWare game - has achievements to earn as you play and replay it.), Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol, Dragon Quest IV (Titles earned for your battle records that change as you play), Dragon Quest IX, Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan and Taiko no Tatsujin (These music games tally up scores and various earned things to take you through ranks), Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (The Rupee Goods collected and displayed in Tingle's attic are functionally a treasure-based achievement collection system rewarding you for fully exploring the game world, as they're hidden and tucked away in all sorts of places and gained for various story and sidequest accomplishments and milestones.), Kirby Canvas Curse (250 medals to earn), The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Big Plays earned online are essentially online-only achievements.), Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times (Various achievement titles are bestowed upon you on your profile when you get evaluated by the principal weekly based on various actions and accomplishments that week or over the whole course of the game.), Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (Numerous pages of adventure log to fill with achievements and indepth obscure stats), Peggle: Dual Shot (Trophies earned for various major accomplishments and special imagery unlocked filling in the trophy screens' relief to chart and reward progress through Peggle and Peggle Nights.), Prey the Stars (Over 100 challenges to complete), Retro Game Challenge is basically driven by them, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, both Spectrobes games (In game achievement badge systems, that used to even have online Disney profiles to link to online to display).

3DS games: Super Street Fighter IV 3D, Samurai Warriors Chronicles (A few little icons to unlock), Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Pilotwings Resort (Basically driven by little unlockables and earned points), 3D Classics: Urban Champion (Grade titles), BlazBlue Continuum Shift II, we'll undoubtedly see awards back in Monster Hunter Tri G, Tetris Axis is likely too (It's by the same team that made Party), AR Fishing (At least, counting the crowns you earn in the fishing journal for completionism), Star Fox 64 3D (Medals), Dream Trigger 3D (Challenges), Shinobi (Has already confirmed achievements), Super Monkey Ball 3D (Medals), and Zoo Resort 3D (Formerly Animal Resort) looks to have a visible medal system with 4 tiers of those to earn too. It would ceratinly be ideal to update all of these games to let them connect their achievements to the Activity Log and an online profile, to display progress and so forth, and to potentially be able to bring that to other 3DS games without them - as they could certainly benefit - and set up the framework for future 3DS games to easily link into this system.

(Quick edit here on November 16th!) '3DSWare' games: Freakyforms has achievements too, with a full 24 grid, and from the looks of the site, that Hirari Sakura Samurai action adventure has its own 24 achievement grid. Wouldn't be shocked if Dillon's Rolling Western, Pushmo/Pullblox, and other '3DSWare' first party games had them too. Perfect for SpotPass updates to display your earned achievements to an online profile in the future whenever the 3DS is tied in.

And there's probably even more than I'm aware of - more than the ones listed above - to earn in various games. It makes sense to finally let us have a profile to attach these things to.

At any rate, if Nintendo will finally just take that next step and commit to a universal achievement system for our new profile across the Wii U, 3DS, and on into the future with their next consoles and portables down the line, it'll be one less thing for a lot of people to complain about, and a welcome addition for something else to collect and fill our profiles with. Ideal for all sorts of scavenger hunts and easter eggs! Two things Nintendo has a long established history of as well.

Edited by Ponkotsu, 16 November 2011 - 12:40 PM.

[StreetPassWanter]

If they have it, that's good and great. But I quite honestly think it's foolish for people who judge Nintendo solely on the fact that there's no achievements...I'd rather have more game than get some arbitrary medal for swinging link's sword 100 times. :/

While I totally agree with this, I've always wanted a reward system. However, 3rd parties, don't devote your entire game to it that it isn't fun anymore.

Anyways, I don't want these in games where there is a significant story. I don't like replaying games like that, sadly.

Edited by StreetPassWanter, 10 September 2011 - 11:23 AM.

[Doc]

I think they shouldnt because it isnt necessary and Microsoft fanboys will complain that Nintendo are copying them :/

[Auzzie Wingman]

My perspective of this has changed, since having a PS3. I never really knew much about this anyway.

This is what I think they should do:
- Use a medal system. Trophies and achievements only have one level. If you use medals, you can give successive rewards e.g. You get a Bronze Medal for getting 20 headshots, Silver for 100, Gold for 250 and Platinum for 1000. However, this means that you can reduce how many individual rewards you need to get for 100% completion, because everything gets tiered. So it's not a direct copy of PS3.

- Emphasis on Co-Op. If they attempt to belittle the idea of bragging rights, in terms of these, and rather turn it into a "You scratch my back, I scratch yours" sort of deal, rewarding players for co-operatively play, it gives a more positive light to what Trophies and Achievements are, make them stand out, giving it a Nintendo like edge to it.

- Details to pop up on the tablet. When you get a [medal], it appears on the touchscreen, rather than the TV. Developers are always seeking ways to make the immersion better. This is just one way.

- Style. Scrolling through lists is rubbish. A Crystarium effect for looking at medals would be awesome. (Crystarium is a FFXIII thing, which I've been playing recently. Think of a FFX Sphere Grid or FFXII License Grid, but with 3D rotation. Otherwise, look it up.) Could also make sorting medals better. Not exactly a uniform sort of thing that Nintendo would do, but it would make it a heck of a lot cooler.

- Reward. You should get awesome stuff for collecting medals from an online centre of some sort. E.g. if you get 200 medals of silver or higher, you can download a special Wii U theme based on... Super Mario Sunshine for example. Of course, you can have internal game rewards too, like every medal gold or higher (of ranked medals), will get you a special code for downloading something awesome for your PC or 3DS.

I like the trophies in PS3 games. I can see Nintendo making them more awesome to collect.