Opening my Achievement window and being met by half-full bars annoys me to no end! Some say I am a bit of a perfectionist, others that I have a mild case of O.C.D. but either way one thing is true: I hate seeing this summary.
I have a very hard time seeing half-full bars, that is usually what makes me push on to dinging and also what makes me want to stop right after I have dinged. And it is what pushes me to complete achievements (except for the ones that award titles, which I would complete anyway).
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Achievements Compared to other Games
My knowledge of MMO-games is restricted to WoW and Warhammer Online. The latter I only know a little about, having played a character up to level 13. But by having seen more then WoW I have something to compare with.
The Warhammer Online Achievement System differs somewhat from the World of Warcraft one:
In Warhammer Online Achievements are hidden, you don’t know an Achievement exists until it pops up on your screen as completed. My initial reaction was that I prefer the Warcraft approach of seeing what Achievements are available, but there is an advantage with the Warhammer Online System: it does not put you under stress to the same degree as the Warcraft one. As mentioned above, having to see the half-empty bars annoys me. Though I like knowing things in advance, I would prefer not having to see exactly how many things I haven’t done yet. Instead of Achievements being fun little things, it puts me in mind of a list of chores and I am faced with exactly how many I have not completed yet.
The other big difference is the amount of titles available through Achievements:
Warhammer Online is littered with titles. And I really mean littered – by the time you reach your tenth level (out of forty) you already have about twenty titles to choose from, which are most probably not even the same ones as those your friends have. Of course there are titles that are extremely rare and can only be obtained by long, hard work and lots of cooperation with other people, but in Warhammer Online titles not only have the function of indicating hard work (as the Warcraft titles do, or at least used to do in TBC), they also have the function of character customization – kind of like haircuts obtainable at the barbershop in Warcaft. And by offering such a great variety of titles to even the lowliest player, the designers have ensured that titles do not have to be overly common.
Let’s face it: every other person you see in Dalaran nowadays is a Jenkins, but I think that if we had more titles to choose from, there would be more diversity.
The fact that so many run around with the Jenkins title, even if it means they have to be associated with “that other guy on the server, that is a real noob” proves to me that people really want titles (or family names).
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What it Boils Down to
Of course no system is perfect and the WoW Achievemt System never will be either, but there is certainly room for improvement.
If I were to change something, it would most probably be the way in which achievements are displayed: I would prefer to hide the achievements I have not completed yet and only look at them when I choose to. This could be done by an option in the Interface Menu, or by only showing uncompleted achievements on the Armory for example.
And of course, if I could have my way, I would implement many, many, many more titles into the game. I mean who would not want to be: Soandso the Vain, or Emperor Whatsyourname?
Myself, I could picture myself as:
Maiara Pin Cushion
a titles obtained after having died 10 times.
Is there any title you would like to see beside your name?
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For a full list of the titles available in Warhammer Online, visit this link.
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