Opening the TA Podcast Mailbag

Same suggestion as last time.....achievement challenge, earn the most coffee cup (time consuming) achievements in the time period.

Let's see who is the hardcore gamer of the bunch.

"Time Consuming
This achievement requires at least ten hours of dedicated play time to obtain

The Time Consuming flag means that an achievement requires a relatively large amount of time to obtain; it should take at least about ten hours to unlock while working specifically on the achievement in a reasonably efficient manner. Since most multiplayer achievements could take an indeterminate amount of time depending on skill or online activity, the measure used in those cases is how long the achievement takes to boost. The period of ten hours does not include time spent progressing to the point where it is possible to attempt the achievement."

So we know from last month you guys mentioned your personal favorite GOTG. Now the question is, what game (or games) were the worst for you this past gen?

My short list is Hour of Victory,and Turning Point. (Trust me there were many more...)

Also for the achievement challenge, I'll just post the one I had for last month :p

For TA:

Matrarch:

OBJ:

Question:
A ton of great work has been done to integrate the new Xbox One achievement and challenge systems with TA. However, given the amount of community discussion that was held around how DLC scores and stats should be calculated (i.e., each member can choose to include or exclude them in the settings), will we see a community vote in the near future on the status of things like challenges and/or app-based achievements in stat and score calculations? For example, I personally would not be opposed to including app-based achievements in my overall completion stats, but I know others are opposed.

Couple ideas for questions:

What is your best Christmas/gaming memory?

In a dream world, what franchise that is exclusive to Nintendo or Sony would you like to see most on Xbox? Personally for me its Zelda, I wouldn't rest until I had every achievement.

Pagemaster146 said:If they ever counted app or challenges as an achievement earned that would be the day this place took a drastic nose dive off a cliff with no parachute.

I for one am boycotting challenges and app crap. MS is simply trying to use you to spend money on apps for bs O point achievements that require no skill, just money. Challenges are another money grab....for example, play during the first week of game release.

Smarter than that shit MS.

TA T-shirt?

CounterInsurgnt said:Summed it up fairly well there. I take it an achievement is actually achieving something.

Question 1: Would you ever consider doing an "achievement of the day"? Basically, a random achievement is chosen, and posted for people to try and get.

Question 2: Would you ever do a True Achievements app on the Xbox. This could be interesting if you made 0 score achievements for it. Examples could be, "post in X number of blogs on the Xbox app" or "write a review, with a section written with the app". With this, you could increase participation, and discussion on the site.

Question 3: As this is the first podcast for the new generation, what has been your favorite Xbox One game, and do you feel that the launch was more successful than that of the 360?

As for the Achievement challenge, As I remember from one of your podcasts, none of you have really played much of Skyrim.. I propose, instead of a single achievement, see who can go further in the story and factions, thus unlocking the most achievements.

A suggestion I have involves the digital or "download only" games on Xbox One (Crimson Dragon, Killer Instinct, LocoCycle, Powerstar Golf, soon Peggle & Halo Spartan Assault and many more in the future. Some possibilities would be that they a) can be classified as arcade games OR b) listed in a separate "Xbox One download only" category. Myself and several others have already started discussing this topic here:

Will Xbox One still have Arcade type games on TA?

Please do chime in!

I was thinking of something to do with the TA ratios of games.
Where you can pick a game/games to get people to play to go back to/start to bring the TA ratio down a bit. Some of the ratios in some of the games I have completed seem a tad higher than I expected. Similar to the achievement of the day in a comment above, but more like game of the month/between episodes. Or maybe pick a game from each platform every time.

Just a question today. Do you think that HD collections will continue on the Xbox One and PS4? I ask this because of the next Kingdom Hearts HD collection being only for PS3.

BlazinBuckwheat said:how about this one: what's your favorite Christmas- (or holiday-) themed achievement?

BlazinBuckwheat said:I like this question. my answer would be Sly Cooper.

Having raced against Rich's Drivatar a number of times now, and him and I always seem to like cutting the same corners on the tracks, I have to ask for the podcast members: On racing games, has there been any particular cars that are your favourites or the ones you tend to seek out when playing in that genre.

matdan12 said:There are two schools of thought here regarding achievements:

1. An achievement is an achievement is an achievement.
Regardless of what you have to do, an achievement worth 0GS is still an achievement. The infamous is worth 0GS, but for those who earn it without using the zombie glitches, it's pretty satisfying. If I start earning Netflix achievements, like (say my brothers and I are watching through Battlestar Galactica together), I feel like I should be able to include that in my own completion stats. It won't affect TA score, since it's worth 0GS, and it won't affect anyone but myself.

2. A game is a game is a game.
Achievements were introduced as an extension of the challenge systems built into many games before the Xbox 360 was released. As such, achievements ("true" achievements if you will) should only be considered for games. Apps are not games and therefore any "game"-like aspects of apps should be ignored.

I agree with you for challenges. It will soon be impossible (if it isn't already so) to earn all challenges, at which point completion percentages will be somewhat meaningless. However, like me with app-based achievements, I can see how other gamers might want to include them as well.

Ultimately, it's up to Rich and the TA team, which is why I asked about this in the first place.

What was your favorite Black Friday/Cyber Monday purchase this year? The replies can potentially, though not necessarily, stray outside of the realm of gaming.

Rich

Matrarch

Jay


(The theme is collection/collectables. Just in case you couldn't figure it out)

How are you getting Xbox One achievement data? I can't even find my own on the Xbox.com website.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:



All of you should get together and try to get it at once. And then write about the experience for Co-Op Corner.

Question: If you could get any single piece of gaming hardware, software or memorabilia from the entire history of gaming in your stocking this year, what would it be?

I'd be happy to attempt to cook up more achievement challenges for all 3 of the podcast crew... but OSU's relatively small list of games played is cramping my style. If you have any unplayed games that you could throw on your tag, OSU, now's the time. Sacrifice your completion percentage for the sake of the podcast.