And if someone is a 100%er they’re playing the game longer. That’s a win for the developers, etc.
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“I’d say the free-to-play stuff that hamstrings players to the point they feel like they HAVE to spend money just to get anywhere in the game is worse. But, it’s succeeding in a number of ways…”
These type of games have such success precisely because of Achievements, badges, and so on. Most of them (browser-based) don’t have any sort of gameplay whatsoever.
Ian Bogost: Cow Clicker. The Making of Obsession (July 21, 2010)
gamification (noun) : The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service: “Gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun.” (Oxford dictionaries)
“I think most gamers like Achievements especially in the games they really do enjoy.”
Maybe Henry, that is, the protagonist of the game, could receive some in-game medals for doing Heroic Deeds…? (Were medals awarded in the Middle Ages?)
“I’d be happy to see some Achievements, it’s always fun to have some little challenges to accomplish just for the heck of it.”
Maybe there could be something similar to the “Freeride Extreme” mode from the Mafia (2002) game…?
Finishing the main storyline unlocks the "Freeride Extreme" mode, which is essentially the same as Freeride, but with the added benefit of stunt jumps, side quests, and the lack of police patrols. Side missions in this mode range from the trivial, such as carrying packages or killing gangsters, to the extreme and sometimes outlandish, like chasing an alien spaceship, or in one mission, driving an explosive-rigged truck at a certain speed, which is a reference to the 1994 action-thriller film 'Speed'.Most hardcore gamers wont care about achievements but what about casual gamers?
I don’t know what to respond to this… What do you mean by “hardcore” or “casual gamers”? I mean, in this context, of this game. How do you imagine would a “hardcore gamer” play KC: D, and how do you imagine would a “casual gamer” play it?
There are casual games and hardcore games, or difficulty levels, but I doubt there are really any casual/hardcore gamers, only some who have self-imposed to themselves that they must beat a certain game in a certain way, at a certain difficulty.
Does this make sense? I believe it does.
I’ll quote a post I wrote some time ago at The Escapist:
There was a time, long long ago, when you usually had nothing to explicitly show that awesome 100% completion of your most beloved game ever, other than going over all the modes showing your friend how they were fully unlocked/maxscored/whatever.
Achivements were a good service and a good idea, allowing for quickly showing the world that you had mastered that game. At some point tho, designers thought that people was happy to “achieve” things, so they decided that giving out more achievements, people would be happier with their games. Just like a moronic DM or modder that thinks that since players like gold, giving them tons of gold will make it a good campaign/mod.
Currently, achievements have lost all sense of having achieved anything. While games Dark Souls makes you suffer, and then tells you “very well, now let’s see if you can survive this”, most others seem to continually pat on our heads just in case we aren’t feeling like we are getting somewhere. And I hate it. I hate it even more than EA’s DLCs. So, for your rejoyce, here’s a collection of my guidelines in determining which achievements should a game have:
- No multiplayer achievements. Yes, I know your game is sooo awesome, but it doesn’t matter, it will eventually die. Even if people still play it, it won’t have the critical mass necessary to sustain a multiplayer community. Then people will be either unable to get those achievements, forever, or feel forced by you to cheat the game getting them together with a friend.
- Do not give more than one achivement for the same action. I don’t need two rewards (one for beating the game, another for beating the last boss, which coincidentally ends the game) thank you, keep that for kids in need of approval.
- The only exception to this is in case you’re giving achivements for beating the game at different difficulties, in which case harder difficulties should [b]always[b/b] give the ones for lower difficulties.
- Rule 2 includes giving away achievements for partial completions. I just need ONE achievement to show that I’ve completed the game. Two, if you have a major plot twist at the middle of the game. Example: Reception party at Portal. Not one achievement every damn boss.
- No achievements for “deeds” that could be completed if I left my 3 years old brother in front of your game, such as “kill your first enemy”. I want achievements when I actually achieve something, and I would rather not wonder about what do you think about me if you’re rewarding me as if I were that same 3 years old baby.
- Likewise, no achievements that require no skill, only boring grinding, as in “kill X enemies with Y weapon”. Wow you’ve spent 10 hours until you killed 5000 bad guys with the BFG, even if you only needed 500 to complete the game. You’re such a master of this game.
- You may include one achievement for completing the game, and up to one for each long/chain of/difficult/epic sidequest not necessary for completing the game.
- You may include one for getting max score or a really high score in a given activity.
- You may include achievements for discovering easter eggs, or specific special actions, unless the gameplay makes a must the use of one of said actions (Half-Life 2 I’m looking at you).
- You may add one achievement for “collect all the X crap items”. Additional “collect Y items” achievements will require said items to be of some real use, such as health containers.
- You may include achievements that require replaying the game one or more times, but they are bad and you should feel bad.
- All in all, you should end somewhere between 5 and 20 achievements.
- You may not include spoilers on the achievements descriptions or titles.
- Don’t you ever dare creating achievements for negative things, such as “get killed 20 times”, “score the least points in whatever”. That’s retarded and the best example of why achievements have lost their meaning.
Let’s see an example: The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
- Obtain the master sword
- Beat the game
- Get max punctuation at the horse archery range
- Get max punctuation at the slingshot range
- Get max punctuation at the bow range
- Catch the special fish at the fishing pound
- Collect all the skulltulas
- Collect all the hearth containers
- Collect all the poes
- Obtain the Biggoron sword
- Obtain all the songs (if I recall correctly, there was one not necessary to finish the game).
- Obtain all the bottles
- Obtain the three godesses powers
AND THAT’S IT!
Following what I wrote here, and for what little we know about how will KCD be, for now I can only imagine a “Complete the main quest” achievement. Maybe one for conquering a castle.
If we get the achievements requested by @OP I’ll get angry.
“There was a time, long, long ago, when you usually had nothing to explicitly show that awesome 100% completion of your most beloved game ever […] Achievements were a good service and a good idea, allowing for quickly showing the world that you had mastered that game.”
Well, I believe that exactly here is the problem with badges! Why the need to brag?? Did you enjoy the game? That’s fine. Then why the need to show-off to your friends or whomever?
People have looked for ways to brag and show off to their friends for generations. This is just another way to do it.
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People like to brag. It is actually one of the characteristic I think all or at least significant portion of all humans have.
All I have to say is that the previous discussion about achievements was much better… 
Maybe it was. 
I haven’t read it. This is then the “lesser” version.
people like to do many silly things, i don’t know why it should automatically be encouraged
So what are some of the silly things you like to do that we could probably criticize you for, 213?
OMG, @213 and @Flashfire, just leave it [as it is]. 
Nobody knows who you guys are. I mean, you don’t need to feel compelled to “defend your honor” or reputation as a “gamer” or something.
xkcd #386: Duty Calls
“People have looked for ways to brag and show off to their friends for generations. This is just another way to do it.”
Let me rephrase then: For what purpose?
“But wherefore all this labour, all this strife?
For fame, for riches, for a noble wife?”
–Alexander Pope (18th-century English poet)
It can easily be explained in just one word: pride.