Time to introduce more Achievements?

Started by BootsMcGraw

BootsMcGraw Lv 1

I was disappointed that the game devs discontinued the Junior/Veteran/Master Debugger and Junior/Veteran/Master Consultant achievements. I had at least a dozen ideas implemented during my tenure as a player, and I still enjoy and continue to point out bugs and offer suggestions to improve the game.

While it's great to see one's name listed as a co-author of a scientific paper, I am guessing that to a newer player, that's not so important. We have a retention problem with new players, and I think that's because they're not receiving anything for their efforts.

I suggest not only bringing the old achievements out of retirement, but creating many new ones that can be easily earned and liberally distributed. It would also be good to have a section of the site similar to the leaderboard pages, listing "new achievements earned this week by players" or something similar. We like to see our names in print.

This ties into the idea offered by infjamc to create a new Achievement for creating a "scientifically valid" solution. See https://fold.it/portal/node/2011214 for that discussion.

georg137 Lv 1

I agree with Boots. Microsoft does exactly this with solitaire, which is still going strong after 3 decades. The MS solitaire collection introduced in 2012 recognizes many levels of achievement. Solitaire is among the three most-used Windows programs and FreeCell is seventh, ahead of Word and Microsoft Excel.

joshmiller Staff Lv 1

Hi Boots and georg137! We'd love to add more achievements. Currently, we are working on some backend improvements to make our achievement system more flexible. Once that's in place, you can expect many more achievements to come out!

joshmiller Staff Lv 1

Thanks for the follow-up Boots,

We are still finalizing the backend of the server in preparation for the new website and polishing its front-end design. After this, we will have dev resources to return to adding achievements into the backend of the server. Thanks for your patience.

jflat06 Staff Lv 1

The new site should be more flexible with the achievement system, so it should be easier to author new ones at that point. But the current focus is on re-implementing the existing achievements.