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actually for what it is worth I think the whole achievement thing is just silly. I don't get what the point of it is, to me it just seems like a big waste of time
beach: I fully agree. There are many game related bug fixes/improvements/features I would rather have seen than archievements, photo albums, "walls" and other non-gaming stuff we've seen lately.
AbigailII: I agree we seem to gotten away from the theme of a game site, to play games, thanks for agreeing I thought I was the only one who thought this site was getting side tracked
Fencer, your idea of "Would you dare to win Espionage by capturing opponent's base without revealing it by a spy?" is good but rather easy. Just capture it with a sab! Perhaps modify the achievement to "Would you dare to win Espionage by capturing the opponent's base with a 4 or 5 without revealing it with a spy?"
SL-Mark: it depends on opponent, if your opponent is a weak player, then you can have a great excess in pieces, so you can capture his base with anything you want
trohat: Correct, I had thought that through, for some it will be impossible, some luck, some easy. For the latter, it becomes a 50:50 probability. (edit: actually it's a probability of 1 if it is a 4 or 5. That's if you haven't resigned by then! )
What about an award for the one who finds the most Easter eggs in BrainKing?
"An Easter Egg is a hidden feature or novelty that the programmers have put in their software. In general, it is any hidden, entertaining thing that a creator hides in their creation".
beach: I think the idea of achievements will be a successful one for people who would like to be at the top of the board can strive to do more, which means additional interest in tourneys and games that use to have little interest, people buying more memberships for themselves and others, and simply more interest everywhere for those people who want to achieve higher achievements. I agree their has been some movement away from the games... but we have 126 games or something ridiculous like that... and if you consider it is just Fencer... I think it is moving in the right direction and I am sure games will be back on tap in the future. (read his posts in the last two or three weeks about new games in the works!)
I had an interesting discussion with my manager at work; who is in charge of me (obviously since he is my manager) and 16 other people who are all very creative and intelligent people with good ideas for improving our company. Basically he told me that he has 17 people with great ideas all wanting their idea the next thing to be worked on. Imagine how that would make the manager feel when people start giving flack to him for putting their priorities on the back burner... Now.. take that situation and multiple it by... oh... about a thousand with Fencer and all of the members here... I think Fencer does a pretty damn good job managing the mess of people and all of the ideas thrown around... Specifically, the achievements thing is a pretty positive thing... just take one look at the polls and see how many people are interested in it (like 90%!)... then consider what else it will do for the site and the game play and I think it was a good improvement. You won't notice anything yourself (except one extra tab on your profile and one additional link on the left side menu) unless you look at the achievements... but you will notice more game play in 'lesser played' games because people will want to do bulk up their own achievements. Be happy! It's done now anyways and he'll move on to something else.
Fencer: Why? Well, I came (and still am for another year) to BK because I wanted to play turn based games. I want to play lots of them. Smoothly. With as little hassle as possible. I don't care about photo albums. (If I want to share pictures, I use my own photo album, or use Flickr). I don't collect friends (if I wanted that, I'd go to Facebook). I don't have the urge to scribble on walls. Or use yet another chat room (jabber at work and a couple of IRC channels is more than enough). Google gives me more than enough links; why would I turn to a turned based game site to collect links? Achievements? I don't need them.
I realize that for others these are cool things. But I'd happily give up the achievements, the walls, the photo albums, and the chat room for, say, differently marked racing and non-racing checkers. Or for the option to have the computer do meaningless things for me, like moving in a game when there's no choice to be made.
I don't plan to leave at the moment, but if I would stumble upon another good site and I were to make a choice between BK and a new site, the games, the interface, the other players and the price of the membership would be factors for me. Photo albums, walls, chat rooms, etc. won't. Similar when it comes to membership renewal.
AbigailII: All extra features you mentioned are optional. So why don't you stick to board games and simply ignore the rest? It would be much wiser than to complain about them.
coan.net: I think their should be an achievement category for people like me. You know, I haven't caused any major problems here for well over 6 months (or has it only been 3??)
Fencer: Hey, I just agreed with beach. If you don't want to hear my reasons, don't ask Why?. Don't complain if I'm polite enough to answer your question.
What about achievements for accomplishments in stairs? This is one I don't see anything for... Winning a 3 win match after being down 2-0... or other combination's of match play... Beat a player in the top 10 for 10 different games
getting two six in a rows at the end of a connect6 game... or the same thing for five in a line, swap five in a line, line4, linetris, etc. Take a queen with a pawn in chess Get a gammon or backgammon get all the frogs in frog finder before your opponent has one of yours... get 7 or more in frog legs... Win by pinning the mother piece in plakoto win pente by capturing 10 pieces, keryo by capturing 15 pieces, etc. Get 50+ pieces at the end of a reversi game, 90+ for reversi 10x10, make your opponent have 50+ for anti, etc. Get 6+ in a row for hasami shogi instead of the normal 5 in a row for a win... Have all of your boats left unsunk at the end of a battle boats game... Get 40 pieces in Ataxx or Assimilation Hit a certain score in dice poker (maybe 300?) or triple dice poker (maybe (1,800?) or other dice poker games... Get a run of 8 points or more in froglet or froglet versions Take your opponents commander tank in it's home base in tank battle Win by 40 in pahtum Get the code in mastermind after a certain number of guesses
There are a number of these things that could be done that are specific to a game or a group of games. I feel it is very important that IF these things are pursued that it is done in a fashion where you have to do it against 10 unique opponents in games where BKR is affected before you get the achievement. These are things to consider obviously, and can be what you make of it. I don't care one way or another if all, none, or only a few are implemented, but since many people like the idea of achievements, I thought I'd share some ideas of mine (I think I stole a couple from previous posts... sorry Coan)
Poker: Achieve a royal flush Win with 10-high or less Win more than 500 chips in a 5/10 limited table Win an Espionage game without losing spies (capture opponents base, so NO resigning!) Get more than 10 points in a single Froglet game move. Get more than 150 points in a Single Froglet game. Get all Ludo pieces at home and no piece of the opponent out. (difficult to achieve!) Achieve a # of points in a Go/Reversi/Cheversi/Dice Poker/Knight Fight game. Achieve 42 or more points during a single Mancala game. Capture at least 10 of opponents pieces during a single Camelot move. Capture at least 5 of opponents pieces during a Single Cam move. Win a Grasshopper game with 7-6. Capture the opponents Plakoto motherpiece. Have at least 30 stones during a Cloning Backgammon game. Have a Anti-Backgammon game of 1000+ moves. ...
There are a number of BKR Achievements that require active chart positions. Which means that you can qualify today, but not tomorrow. Does that mean people can lose achievements? Or does it mean having had the required active chart positions at one point in the past?
joshi tm: no resigning? Playing to bitter end is meaningless. And be forced to play until end because someone want obtain achievement? NEVER. There shouldnt be any achievements wich will lead to delaying game just because attempt to achieve achievement.
lukulus: As I understand it, nobody would force you to keep playing if you don't want to. The possibility of a resignation would actually make the achievement even more difficult to accomplish.
Second - Public Polls - There is also an achivement for voting on public polls. If you have a good idea for a poll, feel free to leave the idea in the Opinion Polls Discussion Board.
All the achievements have a number in the top right corner. Does anyone know what they mean? At first, I thought it was points, but the summary just counts the number of achievements, it doesn't sum the numbers. Then I thought it might be difficulty, the harder an achievement, the higher the numbers. But voting in 10 polls has a "10", and so does "Become the most active player in 3 consecutive days." The former is something anyone can do easily, taking all the time you want. The latter is quite hard to do.
There are at least 2 achievements i believe i should have acquired yet haven't?
Not sure why but i haven't got the buy a black rook one and also the capture opponents king on 4th move in dice chess? Dice Chess (Marfitalu vs. furbster)
Gror: yea... awhile back the special of "buy 1, get 1 free" was a deal. (Normally a black rook lifetime membership costs the same as 10 year membership.) So some (like myself) was able to pay for a 5 year membership, and someone else pay for the other 5 year membership - and then both of us would get the black rook at basically 1/2 cost.
Got mine in 2006 - 2 more years and my "investment" will have paid off.
Fencer: I would agree with the black rook achievement issue if it stated so in the achievement, for example, you could easily resolve the discussion by stating "Purchase a Black Brain Rook membership level at full price" and call it good. But unless it states that I will continue to believe that I and the others that got a deal for their brain rook should still get the achievement points as it simply states: "Purchase a Black Brain Rook membership level."
I really don't like the Achievements that are based on BKR ratings - for example, the one for the ponds to increase your BKR when you finish 10th or worse. Well that would be impossible for me to do since I already have a good pond rating. Anything out of the top 5 or so will result in my losing ratings points - I would basically have to lose on purpose a few times to drop my rating just to try to get that one..... and even though some will do that, I don't think it is in the spirit of the game site to lose on purpose just so you can then achieve an achievement.
So any achievement which might lead to people to lose on purpose so they can achieve something should not be an achievement.
I know a goal that I'm personally trying for (and screwed myself out of when I at one time started to play a lot of games I don't like when I was trying to get a rating in every game) - is if a person has a 66.66666% win rate (after 1000 played games) - meaning they win 2 our of every 3 games.
coan.net: Hmm, for me, it is now impossible achievement no matter if it was after 1000 games, 5000 or 50000 It would mean I had to have some 4000 games in a row without any lose