Steam Achievements

[Havoc]

So with the coming of Steam achievements soon(ish), let's do some speculating on what kind of achievements we want to see in the game. Aside from the obvious ones of course, like 'Save all mudokons' or 'Kill all mudokons'.

I hope the old engine of the Oddworld games is compatible enough to support more complex achievements, but we'll see I guess.

AO:

- Find all secret area's (achievement for every Zulag)
- Make it to the board room in under x minutes from starting the last level.
- Complete the game without being killed once (next to impossible).

AE:

- Use one fart to kill 3 enemies or more.
- Use a slig to kill a glukkon.
- Get through Necrum without stepping on a single fleech.
- Get through the mines without setting off an alarm.
- Reach the Brewery exit in less than x minutes.
- Order a slig to execute another slig.
- Use a glukkon to order a slig to kill yourself (dunno if that's even possible, but if it is it should be an achievement).

[Josh]

Good lord! My time machine works! It's 2009 again!

[Nate]

Good lord! My time machine also works! It's 2010... erm... still. But earlier therein.

[Holy Sock]

AO
Save all 99 Mudokons
Get the good ending
Get the bad ending
Find all secret areas

AE
Save all 300 Mudokons
Get the good ending
Get the bad ending
Find all secret areas

They're the obvious ones. There will probably be story based achievements as well.

[MeechMunchie]

Gadzooks! The device functioned flawlessly! I'm back in 1876! Hullo, what's this - oh, damn and blast! *Zap*

[Mikaeel]

Is there any word on trophies for the PSN version?

I'd love that.

[Wil]

No word on PSN trophies, but I would imagine OddMobb would look into it.

Gadzooks! The device functioned flawlessly! I'm back in 1876! Hullo, what's this - oh, damn and blast! *Zap*

Really? Considering you got an infraction for spam in another thread just yesterday? HINT: Don't answer that here.

HINT: Possible Steam Achievements/PSN Trophies go in the existing thread in FC (I don't blame Havoc at all for not paying attention to that place.

[Havoc]

Good lord! My time machine also works! It's 2010... erm... still. But earlier therein.

[THE ALMIGHTY RAISEN]

do you have to buy the oddbox to unlock the achievements or will they work with the AO and AE i have already downloaded from steam.

[Wil]

They'll almost certainly be added to the existing Oddworld games on Steam. Achievements were recently added to Half-Life 2, which has been around for yonks.

[MeechMunchie]

A.L.I.V.E. has a reputation for being inflexible. Won't they have to do a comeplete code overhaul to fit the achievements in?

HINT: I post the way I always post. Random fluctuations in Admins' attitudes are not in my control.

[Wil]

Possibly not. The games themselves keep track of objects' states, otherwise the sequence of things happening on screen would make no sense. I believe Steam can track these changes, with particular sequences of changes implying particular accomplishments on the part of the player.

For instance:

• Abe possesses a fart.
• Steam starts counting the number of enemies killed.
• Reset the counter once the player is back in control of Abe.

[MeechMunchie]

So the program controlling the unlocking of achievements will be running through Steam, rather than the games themselves?

[Wil]

I don't know, but I think it's possible. Which would be good, because it means OddMobb wouldn't have to attempt to alter the tangled mess that is the A.L.I.V.E. engine.

[Varrok]

In steam achievements sytem the achivements themselves are coded into game files - when player do something which is coded as an achievement, game gives a signal to Steam to unlock it... There is no chance for implementing achivements without any code changes IMO

[Xavier]

I agree with Varrok on this one, it's the game that has to be modified to support achievements, I don't think steam has to capacity to monitor what you are doing in the game.

[Wil]

Then why don’t I get the achievements I should rightfully earn when my Internet connection is down?

[Taco]

Porbably because the piece of code that runs when you get the achievment tells steam to apply the achievment to your account so if you're not online it can't do that.

[Wil]

But if the game is monitoring it, why can't it remember that I deserve it so that I get it when the connection re-establishes?

[Varrok]

The idea is to get achievements while being online :P

[Wil]

Well then what's the point of the game keeping track? It's not like I can deduce my onlineness while playing a full-screen non-online-multiplayer game.

[Nate]

But if the game is monitoring it, why can't it remember that I deserve it so that I get it when the connection re-establishes?

Because when you perform Action X, the game reports to Steam that you have earned Acheivement X. Unless the game was specifically designed to handle the case when there is no internet connection, it wouldn't keep an internal list of the acheivements; it would just report to Steam and assume that everything went fine.


I don't get your question; if the Steam application were monitoring the games, then it almost definately would remember that you earned the acheivement.

[Wil]

Well then the game hasn't been built/modified to handle Steam Achievements very well. You'd think Valve could do better.

[Nate]

I think the issue here is that the Steam program installed on your computer doesn't cache acheivement reports.

You're expecting too much of developers who have no online content in their games to have to handle every eventuality. You're certainly expecting too much of Valve if you think that the Steam platform should be able to monitor the memory state of every single game. Have you any idea how difficult that would be and, as a result, how much bigger and more complicated the program would need to be? Do we need another discussion about elegance in software solutions?

But, like I said, I am surprised that the Steam program doesn't keep track of acheivements even when its offline.

[Wil]

(Valve built the game.)