First let me state my position on Achievements on the Xbox 360. I really like the whole concept that Microsoft introduced here. It might not be the first time a game has given out awards and unlockables. There have always been easter eggs and unlocks for playing a game through on Hard mode or collecting all the hidden objects etc. The clever thing that Microsoft did was make a console wide system out of it. What are the components of this system?
1)
Each game has an points tied to in game actions like completing the game or doing something which can take minutes or hours.
1000 points for each retail game to be given out by the developer as they see fit
200 points for each arcade game as above
Games may add up to 250 points for downloadable content
2)
A score that is visible to others, wether you are online or off, thanks to the gamercard system which is essentially a microsoft hotmail style passport. Your achievements are stored on a microsoft server for all to see.
3)
The hard drive is a closed system. You can't copy to it practically in any way without hacking or additional hardware. Only recognised authorised software can put anything onto the drive.
These are the main components of the achievement system. The third point has led to many criticisms, for example you can copy music from a cd to the hdd but not video from a memory stick. Why restrict the freedom of the user to use the drive as they wish? especially when big name games like unreal tournament need it for user mods. One quick and easy answer, if you could copy freely you could take your game save, where for example you have 1000 points unlocked in Call of duty 4 and upload it to the net and allow anyone who wants to cheat their way up the score rankings an easy ride to the thousand points by downloading it and copying to the xbox 360 hard drive.
Now achievements have changed the way I play games. I think about the achievements before I play, go online and see the best tactics to get the most points. Games now reward multiple playthroughs, collecting all the collectables etc. What does the score mean? Nothing at all, and everything when you compare yours to a friend who also has an xbox360. The friendly rivalry for points has seen me buy stinkers of games just because they have an easy 1000, for example King Kong and Avatar: The Burning Earth.
Now as someone who has been playing games since the late seventies, I have never really needed much motivation to play games. Sure, I have had times when girls or some other hormonal imbalance has seen me leave games alone for say six months at a time, I have always game back. However, not since I could see clearly and simply that I was more of a game geek than my friends list, have I tried so hard to complete games fully and on the hardest difficulties.Think of this what you will
Now with rumours of trophies being implemented onto the PS3 I felt I had to write some of my fears down.
Firstly There must be a clear score or ranking system, I can understand that there may be some copyright issues here, but all the controllers look the same and hardly anyone sues. Surely Sony can get a work around and have a system where I can clearly see a score which shows time and effort put into my games without having to go into my home apartment which probably will need me to be online. Maybe a ranking like call of duty with an awful lot of subdivisions.
The trophy system sounds pretty silly, as in the first point it's the score that counts. Sure I can go into someone achievement history and see that they completed Halo 3 on legendary if I want to, and all the thousands of other achievements that they have. Sometimes I meet someone online and go into their profile and compare games, I hardly go much further than seeing that I have same or higher scores in certain games.
The point is that if they implement a similar system you are going to end up with thousands of trophies after a few years. not even the PS3 has enough polygon pushing power to show all of these on your virtual mantlepiece. So they will be scrolled arounds in a menu just like the xbox360. With no score you are going to have to do an awful lot of digging to see how good someone is.
The last point is the most important, as mentioned before microsoft locked the xbox360 drive into their own rules. Some might say that it so that you can't have custom themes without buying them, The main reason I think is copy protection for xbox live arcade games. What about gamerscore boosting? Think about it if you could copy savegames then you could get a hold of a save with all the unlocks and voila instant gamerscore godhood.
As is usual with computers anything can be hacked, and for a while people were indeed doing this. Microsoft were clever though, going on in the background of an achievement is all sorts of technical trickery, like recording the time and date of the achievment but more importantly the gamertag and the console serial number. Once devices had been sold to allow save trading microsoft simply banged the lid on it by wielding a hammer from on high and wiping the false scores out. Score cheating is a dirty word in most circles and from my standpoint here it seems like they won and you can pretty much say that a gamerscore is a reflection of the amount of time, money and to some extent skill and dedication of someone you meet on Xbox live. Xbox live being the main weapon here, with Microsoft having copies of the data they can run searches on it and find irregularities like all achievements being unlocked in a microsecond etc.
Now where does the PS3 stand here, on a quick inpsection using google I found numerous saved games that i could easily download and copy to my PS3, I don't even have Call of duty for it but at the moment there is a savegame on it's drive which shows that I have played it all through on veteran and unlocked everything possible. What will happen when the Trophies go live, will I be awarded them all for Call of duty, a game I have never put inside my PS3?
If so isn't the whole system completely invalidated right out of the box?
Have Sony even paused for thought on this? The open nature of the PS3 is touted as a plus.
Before i get hate mail I am sure they have, however the question is valid and how are they going to work around the fact that there are loads of savegames out there to download which could potentially see me getting every trophy created first day.
If I was them I would not look at old savegame data. The first thing to do would be to tag each savegame with an encrypted tag which shows the psn id and the console serial number, and any other identifying into they can think of and then start from scratch. It will be a bummer to have to play old games again to gain trophies, but I am sure if the game was good enough then that isn't too much of a hardship.
Otherwise the outcome will be a farce, with rampant trophy cheating rendering the whole system invalid.
If anyone has any info on this then please provide me with a link.
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