You know how hard it is to die for people like Shuyin

J/K

I know several mmorpgs who have a dying achievement, it makes you feel a little less bad and can give some amusement.

Achievement for reaching trans skills or omni-trans. =D

Yeah some of these suggestions are a little overboard. But I like all the stagey/booky/culturey ones Noola suggested, and I approve of miscellaneous ones, like selling a credit or offering a corpse. They're good because they encourage newbies to try that stuff out, in the same way the current achievements for using the rift/using firstaid do.

Direct 100 plays is way too much.

And winning 1000 free-for-alls, or 100 games of freezetag/slippers isn't?

Those are equally impossible, yet we still have them.

It's actually not a lot. Directing plays is way easy.

directing and writing are different. you can write a play but you don't have to direct it. Like wise, you don't have to write the play to direct it.

And anything you do on the stage is considered a production. Like, you could record a speech. You could record a ritual. You could record a debate. You could record a demonstration. You could record a poetry reading. You could record a sermon. And all that's outside the usual one person performances or multi-person plays most people think of when they think of the stage.

I am a little concerned that those achievements would mean we'd have 1000 plays that are one line of someone saying "Narf", though.

Maybe to qualify, they'd have to be at least three minutes long. That seems fair. And sure, someone could just do three minutes of crap. But, someone could do three minutes of crap now, so what's the big deal?


And for the books, it would have to successfully complete the year long publication/critique process to count.

So then it'd be 1000 plays with someone saying Narf Narf Narf Narf .

How about achievements related to having winning plays, parallel with the honors lines? That's somewhat less gameable (or at least a hell of a lot more work, and more visible).

I don't think it's that big a deal. First off, you have to either be appointed a Stage Manager or have a Stage Manager set up a production for you in order to do one. Just make it so only a few select people can be Stage Managers and have them see a script before setting up a production for someone. They don't have to comment on the artistic merit of the script, just that there is, in fact, a script, and that the person they're setting up the production for isn't going to get up there and record 3 minutes of the word "Narf."

eta: I don't like making it 'win' only cause there are some productions which are perfectly good productions, but they're never going to win at the World Stage. That doesn't make them crap or any less worth being counted for an achievement than killing a bunch of rats or weevils, IMO. And part of the coolness of having achievements for it is to encourage more people to use the stage and the library. Making it so it wouldn't be counted unless they won would just discourage that, I think. Cause a lot of people might be willing to try to put something together, if they know it won't be competing against something 10 times better and someone 10 times more experienced. And then, they'll do it again and again cause they want the achievement. And they'll probably get better at it each time, cause they'll figure out it's not as hard as they thought. Or, maybe they won't, and the stage will be full of mediocre or worse performances. So what? Better than only having the same three people producing things, IMO.

While I entirely sympathize with and even to some extent agree with your approach, I've seen what happened when the theater system rewarded things the way you want to. I didn't want to be as disappointed by people as I was. I don't think you do either. But I think that's what would happen.

It's true that some productions will never win, but as long as you're not planning on writing Narf: Part CCCXVII, any person can win. (Actually, so could Narf, since many years, no one submits anything at all, so you just have to submit something -- anything -- to win.) I still think winning is the only realistic balance between gameability and the likelihood of abuse, and keeping it accessible.

You can't make analogies between library and theater because library has a critique system that all hinges around the linchpin of Divine Scholar review, but theater has no administrative review at all, making it an entirely different animal when it comes to gameability.

And while we're on the subject, did you (or anyone) propose ones for getting designs submitted and approved? (With the DESIGNEDBY flag, you wouldn't even have to be a cartel owner to "compete", too.) Also not gameable due to limits in cartel slots and the approval process.

Opening post:

Sorry to repeat the idea, then, and consider my support behind it!

No, but it does have the Stage Manager system. Surely, in Serenwilde, you don't just make every Tom, Dick and Harry a Stage Manager, do you? Stage Managers would need to set up productions for non-Stage Managers. If a Stage Manager is setting up a bunch of productions of nothing but Narf, well, revoke his or her Stage Managerness. Yeah, they're not Admins, but there's still oversight there.

And again, I'd honestly rather there be some BS productions that fall through the cracks and wind up on the STAGE LIST than to have folks who try never get achievements or folks who're too intimidated by the thought of going up against people who've won over and over, and never work up the nerve to try at all.

Stage Managers are players, not admins. There's no oversight over them and no motivation for them to not let people have productions.

The people who point stage managers are also players, not admins. There's no oversight over them, either.

Hopefully they'll have a bit more maturity than allow pure garbage plays that are only meant to increase the count though. Although maturity and players often doesn't exactly go hand in hand, one can at least dream of such a place...

So why would the MoC or Bard leadership allow a completely bonkers person to remain a stage manager? Them recording Narf over and over will reflect badly upon them, and they'll have an actual incentive to remove someone abusing his or her position. And there's... what, twelve possible victories in a year? That is an incredibly strict limit on how to achieve the achievements.

Of course, now I want to create a stageplay that involves a long monologue, followed by a complete non sequitur, then NARF!

I really don't want to be put in the position of defending the fact that people will act like jerks and game the system. I don't understand it either, I don't like it, and I can't defend it. I'm simply saying that that's what happens, and is what has happened. A thousand testimonials that it doesn't make sense that people would do that doesn't counter that people have done it and, when given a chance, continue to do it.

There's 15 victories in a year. Set achievements for 1, 5, 10, and 20 victories, and you'll have numbers comparable to the numbers for denizen kills and such.

In the words of Winston Churchill, the idea of using victories for this achievement is the worst solution, except for all the others. That's the only defense of it I can offer, and the last I intend to contribute here, since I really don't like being put into the position of arguing the point that people will do things that make no sense and that I can't explain simply because they have done and still do.