Forum Acheivements

[Schwitzer]

I was watching some Zero Punctuation today and had a quick browse of their forum and saw something cool; achievements. Have a gander here (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.68312) and notice the little badges some people get under their name.

It could get cluttered and ugly, but it's an interesting idea.

[apostolos]

I saw these on a Greek site too.They would be a great addition to the forum indeed.

[Faiien]

That's so weird, I was thinking about the same thing. But my idea was more like small userboxes below the username, but same concept. I love the idea, to keep it from getting messy we could place a limit on how many badges or userboxes a user can have. Userboxes or badges can be used to commemorate members, identify their usergroups, or show their status at the forums. I hope we can integrate this feature into our forums in the not so distant future and I would be more than happy to make some simple and elegant userbox/badge designs.

[Spartan-II]

Wait, you're telling me that there's yet another way for me to show off my massive e-peen?

Sign me up.

[DoctorZettabyte]

It's a good idea, but it's much like rep, in a way, but the server gives it to you. What kind of achievements are you suggesting?

Facepunch Studios' forums also happens to have said achievements, but instead of a postcount, it falls under a system of "smartness", where every post that you've made without a spelling error receives one "smartness". Every misspelled post loses "smartness". It may be sentences -> "smartness", however. It's an interesting system nonetheless.

FPS forums also has, aside from the "smartness" and in place of rep, an award system, where users are able to rate each others' comments and posts, with different awards, like helpful, funny, stupid, useless, etc,. I'd honestly prefer that over the "smartness" system.

-DocZetta

[Faiien]

What kind of achievements are you suggesting?
As I previously stated it could be used to commemorate members, identify their usergroups, or show the period they've been at the forums.

[GenocideAlive]

Hah. I came up with this idea for BF a while back, but they were more pejorative achievements than any serious attempts. I still like mine better.

[Vezer]

That's so weird, I was thinking about the same thing. But my idea was more like small userboxes below the username, but same concept. I love the idea, to keep it from getting messy we could place a limit on how many badges or userboxes a user can have.

Or perhaps said 'userbox' would only show 'top' medals? Or we could make it some cool mouseover effect.

[Darmago]

Meh, all of the acheivements that could make this really fun are really hard to quantify, much less program.

[MatGeo]

I sort of doubt these achievements will do any good. People will start making a lot of topics to get the "hot topic"(topic with over 1k views) award, for example, and other such similar things. Combine this with the fact that a lot of people are already spamming/posting one-liners/lolcat pics and the lot only to gain rep, I think it will become pretty messy.

[Fiendwurm]

I like the idea a lot! You could give out medals for mapping contests, or for the people who have won the yearly awards (what ever they are called).

[Giggilyomeromicon]

I kind of like the idea of forum achievements, but only if they aren't ridiculously hard to get, and are actually linked to the forums. The great thing about Warboards isn't posting the threads, it's showing everyone online that I did.

[Faiien]

You guys are being too linear, there are plenty of other things you can get awards for.

[kongurous]

I kind of like the idea of forum achievements, but only if they aren't ridiculously hard to get, and are actually linked to the forums. The great thing about Warboards isn't posting the threads, it's showing everyone online that I did.

http://kupax.com/files/3227_uhmpw/Xbawks.jpg

With that said, I don't like the idea of achievements because all I've seen come out of them is people who go through cheap ways to gain said achievements. It relies on the honor system and expecting people to follow that on the Internet is foolish.

[Neo]

from what it looks like people are limited to showing only 4 achievements at a time. For instance, http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/Yahtzee+Croshaw lists every one he actually has.

So. Anyone care to program this for a vBulletin? ;)

It'd be for fun kong, something to retain members, regardless if they tended to PM one other more often in hopes of gaining a badge or whatever.

-Neo

[DoctorZettabyte]

It wouldn't necessarily have to be tied to posts, either. The WarBoards awards have been mentioned, and I like that idea. Arcade achievements would also be fun to get, like X points in Y game.

Just suggestions. I doubt we'll ever see these though. :-/

-DocZetta

[kongurous]

It'd be for fun kong, something to retain members, regardless if they tended to PM one other more often in hopes of gaining a badge or whatever.

I've seen one too many achievement games/servers in one too many games to consider any sort of achievement system worth the time and effort it would take to implement. It gives people something else to do, one more system to try to exploit and for what? Little icons and a bigger e-peen. Warboards doesn't need that in my opinion. If people were more honest, my opinion would be different but I don't put it below anyone's conduct on the Internet to try to exploit it.

[Spartan-II]

I've seen one too many achievement games/servers in one too many games to consider any sort of achievement system worth the time and effort it would take to implement. It gives people something else to do, one more system to try to exploit and for what? Little icons and a bigger e-peen. Warboards doesn't need that in my opinion. If people were more honest, my opinion would be different but I don't put it below anyone's conduct on the Internet to try to exploit it.

When the fuck did you get so serious? Live a little.

[kongurous]

When the fuck did you get so serious? Live a little.

I can't emphatically disagree with something?

WHY ARE YOU READING THIS YOU ARE NOSY ARGABLARGLEARGLE

[Magmaniac]

I don't really think that the warboards member base needs another reminder being shoved in their face about how much better than the rest of them I am.

[Faiien]

I think we should have a poll, democracy always prevails in these situations when the topic voted on isn't a person or persons but rather an option.

[VigilanteV]

I don't really think that the warboards member base needs another reminder being shoved in their face about how much better than the rest of them I am.

HEY! HEY! HEY!.....hey....hey....

Can I have your autograph? Or can you sign my chest.

anyways, Achievements would just cause whoring. LOTS of whoring. Though the idea is still pretty cool.

[Spartan-II]

blarg blarg why are you nosy blarg blarg

Why so serious? If the kids want to have fun, honey, you should let them. They have to learn from their own mistakes after all.

[DoctorZettabyte]

Let's try it. It could be a...um...social experiment.

Let's put a smile on those faces!


Really though, people probably would abuse them. Fun test for the "spam crackdown" to see how well the mods can perform :-D

-DocZetta

[Darmago]

I sort of doubt these achievements will do any good. People will start making a lot of topics to get the "hot topic"(topic with over 1k views) award, for example, and other such similar things. Combine this with the fact that a lot of people are already spamming/posting one-liners/lolcat pics and the lot only to gain rep, I think it will become pretty messy.


On the other hand, the "hot topic" ect acheivements could make it so that people actually attempt to post good threads. There could be an acheivement for "made N posts over M words long" Not sure there is a word-counter or anything but whatever. there could also be mod awarded acheivements like "excelent poster" or "pillar of the community" or something like that.

Also, it would be nifty if you could click on the avhievement icon and go to the post that they got it on, so everyone will know if they're cheating to get the achivement

[DoctorZettabyte]

I like that system, Darmago.

Now we'll wait for Black.Ice to come tell us it's all a joke. :-P

-DocZetta

[Modred]

On the other hand, the "hot topic" ect acheivements could make it so that people actually attempt to post good threads. There could be an acheivement for "made N posts over M words long" Not sure there is a word-counter or anything but whatever. there could also be mod awarded acheivements like "excelent poster" or "pillar of the community" or something like that.

Also, it would be nifty if you could click on the avhievement icon and go to the post that they got it on, so everyone will know if they're cheating to get the achivement

The "N posts over M words long" would probably just invite longer spam (I remember one time someone spammed every forum in BF with a long explanation of railroad trusses. Not inherently a spam topic, but when replicated and posted in the wrong places, it quickly becomes such.)

For the "excellent post", what if we had a nice rating system that members could feed posts into, rating either up or down like on digg. If a post reaches a certain value, it is scanned for key words, which are added to a dictionary used in a filter to pre-rate new posts as either spam, quality, or in between. Use a filtering algorithm modified off of Bayes theorem, similar to what you use to filter out junk email, only larger and slightly more complex. It would have the benefit of being much more difficult to game than something purely based on a number.

[B.A.Baracus]

I don’t need a name tag to know what a lewd, afk spammer I am.

[NoobOfLore]

I Love the Ideas of forum achievements, but as stated before, there will likely be some epic stat-whoring invloved, so as a balance a mod/admin y=should be able to remove an award if he/she believes it was gotten unfairly.
Another choice is to have a poll to see if somebody deserves an award, showing tall voters what material is in question.Then again, this all seems like somewhat a waste of effort, and while I like the idea a lot, it seems extremely difficult to implement.

[kongurous]

Why so serious? If the kids want to have fun, honey, you should let them. They have to learn from their own mistakes after all.

A reputation system does about the same thing an achievement system does, just the reputation is a more vague "post good quality or funny things and people will rep you" concept than "achieve X, get Y achievement" is. And "achieve X, receive Y" is easier to exploit, especially if its "achieve X amount of posts/achieve X amount of replies/achieve X amount of Y, receive Z."

I don't see any good coming out of this and so I disagree with it.

[Faiien]

Does anyone see my posts? The achievements do not purely have to be based on post counts ect. ect. ect. You can use them to show which user group your in or what section you participate in the most.

[Neo]

Gosh people. The idea behind achievements is that it might be fun.

And we've got staff around to deal with anyone trying to "game" any possible system, since it might be apparent after the 50th post in a 10 minute period of time that the person was going nuts.

Some of the achievements were things like "have posted during 6 months" or "12 months" meaning you could actually entice members to stay around and contribute -- even if it's just a cool little badge underneath their avatar.

Why do people play the arcade here on Warboards even though there are large arcades with more games elsewhere? Why do some like Warinserbia and GA play the arcade and now sit on 5-6 high scores each?

Of course it doesn't really matter, but if we only did things that mattered we wouldn't even be posting on warboards in the first place.

-Neo

[Spartan-II]

blah blah I like male genitalia in/on/around my anus blah blah

Just because something has the potential to be exploited doesn't mean it should be denied on those grounds alone. Let people have fun, and let the mods ban people who break rules to get achievements, if it comes to that.

This is the internet after all, what happens here really doesn't matter.

[kongurous]

Just because something has the potential to be exploited doesn't mean it should be denied on those grounds alone. Let people have fun, and let the mods ban people who break rules to get achievements, if it comes to that.

This is the internet after all, what happens here really doesn't matter.

Trusting people to be honest is like trusting a rock to swim.

[SilverCrusader]

Trusting people to be honest is like trusting a rock to swim.
I agree with kong. Rocks don't make good swimmers.

[Modred]

Trusting people to be honest is like trusting a rock to swim.

What floats besides wood? Bread! Apples! Very small rocks!

Also, on the honesty thing, you have to force people to be honest. Close as many holes for exploitation as possible, so that exploiting the system is more work than participating normally. So yes, I tend to agree with kong, even though it could be done well with some effort.

[Spartan-II]

Again, it's the internet. The only thing that they have to gain by cheating is an inflated e-peen. You might get butthurt about it, but that's your own damn problem.

[Neo]

You're all stick in the muds, and Kong, what does it matter if people are honest or not?

It's an automatic system. You recieve a pm from 10 different people, you get badge, GASP, SHOCK, OMFG.

You get a badge for posting a hot topic, again, WOW!?

These are all cool little things you get by sticking around and participating in a forum, and personally I think it's a nifty idea. However, you're right, some people might game the system, like how some people currently try spam in the game room to increase their post count, or how some people try to be rep whores.

But you don't exactly see us allowing people to really spam up the forum, or to post rep-whore threads do you?

Besides, don't you think it might be just a little obvious if someone was trying to get a "50 threads created" badge (for instance)? I don't think the staff is that dim-witted. Gosh, let's not even attempt this because, hell, a couple of people might try to game the system, and the staff are so damn stupid they wouldn't be able to catch it!

-Neo

[Faiien]

That man deserves a round of applause.

[kongurous]

You're all stick in the muds, and Kong, what does it matter if people are honest or not?

It's an automatic system. You recieve a pm from 10 different people, you get badge, GASP, SHOCK, OMFG.

You get a badge for posting a hot topic, again, WOW!?

These are all cool little things you get by sticking around and participating in a forum, and personally I think it's a nifty idea. However, you're right, some people might game the system, like how some people currently try spam in the game room to increase their post count, or how some people try to be rep whores.

But you don't exactly see us allowing people to really spam up the forum, or to post rep-whore threads do you?

Besides, don't you think it might be just a little obvious if someone was trying to get a "50 threads created" badge (for instance)? I don't think the staff is that dim-witted. Gosh, let's not even attempt this because, hell, a couple of people might try to game the system, and the staff are so damn stupid they wouldn't be able to catch it!

-Neo

We have a reputation system for a reason. I think that's bad enough, personally.

Clarification: do I think the staff are stupid? No. Do I think they'll get bored of keeping up moderation of the system? Yes. I also applaud you, Neo, for being so consistent over the years; your ability to blow things out of proportion has not diminished. And if someone's entire reason for remaining here is for the rep system, I can guarantee you that they'd be spending their time better somewhere else.

[Schwitzer]

Karma's fine, although some of you have reached the highest level that I'd made.

[Neo]

We have a reputation system for a reason. I think that's bad enough, personally.

Clarification: do I think the staff are stupid? No. Do I think they'll get bored of keeping up moderation of the system? Yes. I also applaud you, Neo, for being so consistent over the years; your ability to blow things out of proportion has not diminished. And if someone's entire reason for remaining here is for the rep system, I can guarantee you that they'd be spending their time better somewhere else.

Wow Kong, could you really any more confrontational or negative?

No one claimed that people were staying because of just the rep feature. Why would anyone stay for just that?

The idea is that you make your forum unique, so that people will want to come back not only for the community but for the nifty side features as well.

If you make a forum with no extra anything, features, convenience, nothing, then you're gonna have one boring board going on, and why would anyone stay? You'd have to have some really kickass dedicated regulars.

Hell, even 4chan/7chan see various feature upgrades from time to time, and that's about as damn basic as you can get. People don't stay because of the ability to expand all pictures in a thread, or to load the thread without hitting the reply button, but they're nice features to have nonetheless.

Oh, and awesome, I didn't know speaking my mind was overreacting.

-Neo

[kongurous]

Wow Kong, could you really any more confrontational or negative?

Confrontational? Not at all. You and Spartan contested me. I merely stated disagreement with the topic. I don't consider that confrontational at all; one can vote "no" and not argue over it.

No one claimed that people were staying because of just the rep feature.

Nor did I.

The idea is that you make your forum unique, so that people will want to come back not only for the community but for the nifty side features as well.

Then find something no one else has (which is the definition of unique!), yeah? Achievements are all the rage now.

Oh, and awesome, I didn't know speaking my mind was overreacting.

-Neo

It is quite clear that you are indeed speaking your mind; the words you're proclaiming that I said only exist there.

[HazzaDaShiz]

Facepunch Studios' forums also happens to have said achievements, but instead of a postcount, it falls under a system of "smartness", where every post that you've made without a spelling error receives one "smartness". Every misspelled post loses "smartness". It may be sentences -> "smartness", however. It's an interesting system nonetheless.

You spell it color, I spell it colour.
You spell it nite, I spell it night.
And so forth.

[Neo]

Kong really.

Fine, not "unique" since nothing on the internet will be unique for long, because if it's popular it will be copied eventually. Perhaps, "have nifty features" -- of course the extras wont carry a forum alone, but that coupled with an awesome community will.

For instance maybe you'll have achievements tie into a game if you're a gaming forum. EG: First to 99 from the board on new D2 Ladder. Or first to beat that new custom TD map out of the map/mod section.

Achievements may not be unique, but the ones you gain at that particular forum could be.

Think, you could have an aceivement "badge" for awards you might've won during the WB Awards and such. I personally think that would be pretty awesome.

-Neo

[Schwitzer]

I think that if achievements do end up rolling around they shouldn't be for mundane things. Sending ten private messages is not an achievement, don't you agree? There's no point glorifying petty stuff as it makes the whole achievement system feel ho hum.

I don't want to spend to much time brainstorming about achievements, because ultimately it comes down to whether AJ cares for it and can be bothered implementing it.

Neo mentioned WarBoards awards, which would be a good one. I think being here for x years should be another. Arcade high score badges used to show up in profiles, which were kinda like achievements.

I just thought it was a cool gimmick. Didn't realise it would spark a five-page debate.

[Neo]

Only two pages for me :p

To be fair this is something I'm seriously considering trying to implement on Khanduras.

-Neo

[Faiien]

Once it's up again? ;)