It's Official - Achievements Coming To World Of Warcraft

While most companies were driving themselves crazy at E3 this week, Blizzard quietly confirmed rumors from early last month, officially announcing achievements for World of Warcraft, coming with the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Achievements are broken up into several categories - PVP, Dungeon and Raid, Quests, Professions, Events, World Exploration, Reputations, and the more whimsical General category, which includes an achievement for getting a shave and a haircut using WotLK's new barbershop feature.

Some achievements will carry rewards such as tabards, pets, and other prizes, and Blizzard promises more with each new content update. Players will be able to compare their achievements with others both in-game and via the Armory.

My girlfriend just got her first character to 70 this week, and asked me what she could do now. If she can be patient it looks like Blizzard has an answer forthcoming.

Wrath of the Lich King Achievements [World of Warcraft]

Playfire Launches PS3 Trophies Gamercard Service

I feel, as a culture, we've gotten really joyfully achievement-obsessed. We check our point scores as compulsively as we do our bank accounts, we demand to know what achievements will be available in games that aren't even out yet, and we have anticipated the launch of PS3 trophies with fervor. Fervor, I tell you.

A big part of this is so that we can show our play habits and our performance off to our buddies; seeing a My Gamercard on someone's website is like an instant badge of recognition. So it's unsurprising that a company called Playfire has rushed to be the first to create a Gamercard service for PS3 trophies (hopefully 2.4 squares away soon). It's currently in beta, and here it is!

The... trophycards? support themes, too letting you skin the cards with Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, LittleBigPlanet or SuperStardust HD.

"The server I found myself on was an odd, unsettling place," writes Alec Meer, exploring Team Fortress 2's "Achievement Servers" for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "The tiny, custom map placed the red and blue spawn points right next to each other, removed the wait period between respawns, dropped a single capture point in the middle and placed intelligence briefcases at either end. A small pool of water was placed awkwardly in a corner, and health packs scattered in bizarre columns. No-one could ever win this map - it was set up to repeat forever."

No sooner than Pyro's unlockable weapons drop than does the grinding and achievement farming begin again with great intensity. Alec visited an achievement servers to witness the depravity himself firsthand and, of course, found himself unlocking 14 achievements and getting the Flare Gun. "It’s as though someone’s stamped LIAR on my Steam page."

Loads of good vignettes in this piece. If you like TF2 or have an opinion on achievements, give it a look.

Achieving Nothing in TF2 [Rock, Paper Shotgun]

OK, I think I get the gist of this piece. TeamTeaBag takes a look at gaming achievements on the 360, and it's hard for me to assess the tone: Either SmellyGeekyBoy (the writer)

• resents the hell out of all achievements and is parodying achievement whores OR

• knows that cynical motives on behalf of Microsoft and the developers are the reason for game achievements. But he can't help himself from collecting all of them or

• agrees completely with and loves the concept of achievements.

I think it's between 1 and 2. And for myself, I'm between 2 and 3. I look on it this way, when you get a game that you really, really enjoy, the achievements show that you got your money's worth. Hokey, I know, but for those titles that don't have a 100 percent-completion model (and for some that do) the achievements can add another reason to keep on enjoying it.

Why Achievements are Awesome {TeamTeaBag]

Also, you can get that bumper sticker via CafePress

Valve had a nice little gathering of souls last night at Blondie's Bar and No Grill here in SF to show of the new Team Fortress 2 map, Goldrush. If you are reading this, you are probably a big Team Fortress 2 fan, so I'll skip explanations of the game and dive right into the details.

First of all, I loved the look of it. The name certainly describes what the map was like, looking like something out of Disney's Big Thunder Mountain railroad ride. Lots of wooden structures, water towers and mine car tracks. But the map isn't just a new area, it also features a new gameplay type called Payload. Basically how it works is this: the map has three separate areas and players are split into offensive and defensive teams. The goal of the offensive team is to push a mine cart loaded with explosives through the map, capturing the defensive team's bases as they go. The cart moves faster depending on how many people are surrounding it and leaving it unattended will cause it to start rolling back towards the beginning again. The other team of course, tries to stop the payload from reaching it's goal.

The map wasn't the only thing going however. We were also privy to the new item system that will be instituted with the next update. This also ties in with the thirty six new achievements for the Medic class. By gathering some or all of the new achievements, you can gain three new unique items. One third of the achievements will net you The Blutauger, a new syringe gun. This weapon does not give critical damage, but instead sucks health from the enemy on impact. Earn two thirds of the achievements and you will get The Critzcrieg, a new medigun that will rapid fire critical rockets. Getting all the achievements will see you receiving The Ubersaw which takes melee combat damage and converts it into Ubercharge. Four direct hits with it will charge up whatever Medigun your Medic has currently equipped.

Team Fortress fans are going to have a field day with this new map and if you want to get all those new weapons (and I know you do) take a gander at all 36 achievements after the jump!

Ikaruga Achievements *Mostly* Doable

Dark Sector's PS3 Entitlements?

Achievements: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2

We received a tip that the list of achievements for the new Rainbow Six game have made it into the wild. My favorite after a quick perusal of the list is "Haute Couture," given for creating your own custom camouflage.

I'm ashamed to admit that the game that I've come closest to getting all achievements is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix followed closely by Shrek the Third. Sad but true.

Xbox 360 Achievements

The Club, Exactly One Harder Than Gears of War

It used to be a fight to push the most polygons or have the smartest AI. Now it's all about the bitchiest Xbox LIVE achievement. Many of you are probably familiar with the Gears of War achievement called 'Seriously,' which challenges gamers to stack up 10,000 kills during online ranked matches.

Now Bizarre Creations is taking the achievements game a step further in The Club. In an achievement aptly (and pointedly) named "No, Seriously," gamers are challenged to rack up 10,001 kills during online ranked matches. Low blow, Bizarre. And we love it. Let the impossible achievement arms race continue!

The Club one-ups GoW's Seriously achievement [Xbox360Fanboy via DigitalBattle]

A lot of folks got uptight about it when the Achievement list was leaked. They were yelling on the forums about how we're awarding anti-social behavior. Won't somebody think of the children and all that nonsense so, you know, to our credit we listened to the fan-base, and we patched the Achievement to remove that team-killing portion, so everything's well in the universe once again. Never let it be said that we won't listen to the fan-base and if there's something that they feel really strongly enough about, we're always willing to go back and take a second look.

Yesterday we reported on a rumor that concerned the recent issues with Xbox Live being responsible for wiping out some of the achievements 360 gamers played hard to collect. Despite several comments on that story indicating otherwise, word from Microsoft's Larry Hryb is that this is not the case. The following comment appeared in Larry's Twitter widget early this morning.

Regardless of what you have read, achievements are not disappearing for users

This afternoon Microsoft officially responded to our request for a comment, saying mostly the same thing Hryb said:

Xbox LIVE is not erasing Achievement's earned while playing on the service. If any member is having trouble with their Xbox LIVE service, we urge them to contact 1-800-4-my-xbox.

German Site TeamFortress 2 has listed what they say are the 36 new achievements for the game's Medic class that Valve mentioned way back in last year.

Most of the Medic-centric achievements seem rather lackluster, more like gimmies than something you have to really work for, like helping with a capture or healing for a "long time." There are a couple of neat ones in there like the "killing a scout with the syringe gun achievement.

Hit the jump for the full list via Team Fortress 2 [Via Evil Avatar]

Xbox Originals Are Achievement Free

Microsoft blogger Larry Hryb takes no delight in crushing fan dreams today with an update on the recently announced plan to release original Xbox games via Xbox Live Marketplace. Apparently, some were speculating that the company would go the extra mile for the 1200 MS Point releases, adding Achievements and Gamer Score to games like Halo, Fable, Psychonauts and Crimson Skies. Sadly, Mr. Hryb writes that adding such a feature would be technically impossible for the older titles, even adding a little frowning emoticon to illustrate the seriousness of the matter.

I'm sure that Microsoft—and many third parties—would love to add these options to older Xbox re-releases. The cash revenue from achievement whores could make even Psychonauts finally turn a healthy profit.

Will Xbox Originals have Achievements? [Microsoft]

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga has got to be the most outrageous milking of a solid franchise I've ever seen. I mean they essentially took two of the games they already made and turned it into a third game and are charging full price for it. Of course I want the shit out of this game, even if they are taking advantage of my twin lusts: LEGO and Star Wars.

In their defense (and mine), the game will feature things like Wii lightsaber fights SIXAXIS motion sensing and such. Of course there's also a chance to earn 1,000 achievement points on the 360. Hit the jump for the full list.

Orange Box is Achievement Heaven (or Hell)

We finally understand that whole achievement addiction syndrome. But we'd still avoid using the old rubber band trick.

For those who'd like to add a bit of sexual objectification to your otherwise very healthy, loving and mutually-respectful relationship, this feisty garment will run you $13.

ACHIEVEMENT LOCKED UNDERWEAR [via playgadgets]

It looks like the Halo 3 achievements have popped up over on the official Xbox site, I've posted pics of them all on the jump, but be warned, the names for the game's nine campaign missions are in there so don't look if that bothers you.

Halo 3 Achievements [Xbox]