Widescreen Gaming Forum

Although one could argue that absolutely everything is done for profiteering, and honestly your opinion comes off as a bit alarmist...

Oh come now, don't paint me as a Susan Powder type stop the insanity person just because I point out the sad truth about the psychology of advertising and the adverse effect it's success has on the quality of products.

The grim reality is, most consumers can be lead down just about any path a clever manufacturer wants to take them and start craving things that are in fact quite trendy and shallow. Nothing I've said is untrue really, it's just that most with such addictions don't care to hear it.

Achievement Points are a bit like red push in TVs. It's not there to enhance your viewing experience, just lure consumers in psychologically. Many consumers have recently become aware of what red push is and seek to remove it or buy sets that have little to none. I can only hope gamers will eventually get a clue about AP too, but I'm not going to go all Susan on them trying to convince them to. After all, she's just another of many using gimmicks to profit. :wink:

Oh come now, don't paint me as a Susan Powder type stop the insanity person just because I point out the sad truth about the psychology of advertising and the adverse effect it's success has on the quality of products.

The grim reality is, most consumers can be lead down just about any path a clever manufacturer wants to take them and start craving things that are in fact quite trendy and shallow. Nothing I've said is untrue really, it's just that most with such addictions don't care to hear it.

Achievement Points are a bit like red push in TVs. It's not there to enhance your viewing experience, just lure consumers in psychologically. Many consumers have recently become aware of what red push is and seek to remove it or buy sets that have little to none. I can only hope gamers will eventually get a clue about AP too, but I'm not going to go all Susan on them trying to convince them to. After all, she's just another of many using gimmicks to profit. :wink:

...I see what you're saying and empathize with it, I'm just apparently missing what your point is...just that Achievements (like nearly half of the things they cram into modern electronics) are a gimmick?

To me they only negatively impact multiplayer if at all, and to that extent you're playing with the wrong community anyways...

Is it wrong to actively enjoy a gimmick? I'm twice as likely to buy a steam game with achievements simply to one up my friend in the number of achievements that i have obtained.

Where's that face palm pic of Cpt. Picard I keep seeing on forums when I need it? That last comment kinda reaffirms my point really. It used to be real skill like mp rankings that were bragged about. Now devs have players saying "Woot, I found and killed all 200 pigeons!" Is that a skill to brag about, or an indication someone has way too much time on their hands? I tend to think the latter, esp when it only unlocks something you can spawn with a phone call, save for the rocket ammo, which isn't needed that much in the game anyway.

Anyways to answer, be more to the point, and not ignore the responses, no, it is definitely NOT wrong to enjoy a gimmick. It is annoying IMO however for them to make gimmicks that serve them more than us, functionally I mean. Unless of course most video game players are actually satisfied bragging about such mundane things that anyone can do if they plod through it long enough.

Where's that face palm pic of Cpt. Picard I keep seeing on forums when I need it? That last comment kinda reaffirms my point really. It used to be real skill like mp rankings that were bragged about. Now devs have players saying "Woot, I found and killed all 200 pigeons!" Is that a skill to brag about, or an indication someone has way too much time on their hands? I tend to think the latter, esp when it only unlocks something you can spawn with a phone call, save for the rocket ammo, which isn't needed that much in the game anyway.

What I find funny about that quote is that multiplayer leader boards are generally weighted by time played, and not by skill level.

So we've gone from "look at me I have hours to waste on this video game" to "look at me I have hours to waste on this video game and I got a message telling me so?"

Not when I was playing mp, it was all about kill count back then and by God you had to be good to be consistently at or near the top. Is it really surprising even mp rankings have become watered down with such ridiculous sp bragging rights these Achievement Points involve? What they've done is slowly replace real goals with superficial ones.

It's like shopping, put up enough "convenience" stores and eventually they will be swarming with consumers willing to dole out a couple bucks for a cheeseburger dog that looks like a dried up turd just because it's across the street. What I mean is if you make something easy enough, lots will start doing it and soon it becomes trend.

Take Halo 3 or CoD4 for example, the latter of which was done perfectly (SP achievements only). There are tons of people who still play that for "skill" and leaderboards (not sure there is anything like that on Halo 3, but they have all sorts of stats on bungie.net). People will probably play the game like they would've even without achievements. It only adds incentive imo. In GTAIV for example, I might not have even tried to do most of the things I did (like escape max wanted) if it weren't for them.

I'm not gonna add to that anymore, except that I wanna see the new DLC soon. D:

Take Halo 3 or CoD4 for example, the latter of which was done perfectly (SP achievements only). There are tons of people who still play that for "skill" and leaderboards (not sure there is anything like that on Halo 3, but they have all sorts of stats on bungie.net). People will probably play the game like they would've even without achievements. It only adds incentive imo. In GTAIV for example, I might not have even tried to do most of the things I did (like escape max wanted) if it weren't for them.

I'm not gonna add to that anymore, except that I wanna see the new DLC soon. D:

Ah, good GTA IV memories... :D

I agree that CoD4 did the achievements right, despite the fact that the whole game overall (imo) was not all that great...

This is getting better and better. I cannot play the game online because I am unable to sign in to windows live application! I checked gfwl forum and turns out I am not alone, but there is no solution. I did forward or open the necessary ports in my firewall and router, and I am running out of ideas. Anybody here has a similar problem? I have got 5 more days to return the game to the store, and it looks like I will finally take advantage of this option.

I am having this same problem. I can't sign on to GFWL. I had to create an offline account so I could save the game. I haven't even tried to play mutliplayer yet.

: (

Anybody hear of a fix?

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EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 3.5GB | 3 X LG Flatron 24EA53VQ in Nvidia Surround | Optoma HD20

Funny how the latest patch made GTA IV completely unplayable for me.

After playing for an hour or so it starts to get a bit jerky, quickly worsens and after a while freezes completely, taking XP down with it.

Thx, but I'm not playing a game that regularly forces me to reboot my OS.