As I see it now, most long time members (including myself) spend more time on the forums than on track. Recently, WoW showed how to motivate old players again (which was on a historical low before the release of WotLK for various reasons until patch 3.0). What I am talking about is, as the title suggests, achievemnts. Now if I recall correctly, this system was invented by the blokes at Microsoft for the XBox360.
Now at first, I found the idea of achievements quite stupid, but after having played a few games which feature them, I really fell in love with that system, as it gives you something to do and a feeling of ...er.... achievement. (yeah, I know, the feared "instand gratification" crowd knocks on the door). I know that you could explore the whole of WoW or take 2000 damage points as a Heavy in TF2 without getting an achievement, but if you get one, it kind of makes it official and thus fun.
Another point for achievemnts would be the popularity of CTRA: there, people can achive licenses, thus giving motivation and reason to a rather pointles "grinding" of races in slow cars.

Now I am aware that achievemts are a very "gamey" feature, but that is usually due to the games they are used and the nature of the achievements.
If done right though, I think they fit very well with LfS and simulations in general, and as LfSWorld gathers much data on you anyway, many achievements wouldn't need too much effort to do, as they would simply add an interpretation layer to the already existing data.

Now for some examples for achievemts:

Pole Dancer: Win an online race of at least ten laps after starting from pole position without being overtaken once.

Shoemaker: Win an online race after starting last in a grid of at least 10 racers

Test Driver: Drive on lap on any track with every car in game

Globe Trotter: Drive one lap on one variant of each track

Master Explorer: Drive one lap of every single track variant of every track

Nutter: Drive every car/game combo

Rallye master: Win an online race on every dirt track

The Cleaner: Drive a race without touching the body of another car

Perfectionist: Drive a race of at least ten laps without causing a yellow flag

Clockwork: Drive five consecutive laps with all laptimes within half a second

Learned Driver: Pass every training lesson.

Teachers Pet: Pass every training lesson as Pro

Also, depending of the type of the achievement, it could have different levels, like doing 1, then 5 and finally 10 laps for an achievement.

Of course there could also be some humourous, nonsensical or plainly stupid achievements like:

Absolutely Clueless: Cause a yellow flag in every sector of a track in one single lap

Jinxed: Roll a car on the drag strip

Allthough those are, of course, not neccessary to motivate most people to get back on track again.

So conclusively, I think that achievemnts would be a measure to motivate people to drive again with relatively little effort from the devs.

Physics updates and actual progress would motivate me even more.

Now that's where the genious of my plan kicks in: while Scawen works on LfS itself, Victor should be able to implement such a feature on LfSWorlds with very little help from Scawen.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

As I see it now, most long time members (including myself) spend more time on the forums than on track.

True

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Recently, WoW showed how to motivate old players again (which was on a historical low before the release of WotLK for various reasons until patch 3.0).

Out of curiosity, do you have anything from the horse's mouth to back this up? No census addons, please. They're unreliable at best.

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What I am talking about is, as the title suggests, achievemnts. (yeah, I know, the feared "instand gratification" crowd knocks on the door).

I'm not sure about this one. Achievements don't have to be nice 'n quick, they could be challenging and long-winded too. Though, LFS isn't time based in the same way as WoW. "Instant gratification" is maybe more worth it because we don't earn better cars or parts the more time we put in (save for the cruisers).

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I know that you could explore the whole of WoW or take 2000 damage points as a Heavy in TF2 without getting an achievement, but if you get one, it kind of makes it official and thus fun.

Not sure I agree with "official thus fun". Drifting, cruising, destruction derby, tweak etc. can all be fun without being official. The official part sounds a bit similar to being able to say that I've done it but you haven't. E-peen. I do get what you're saying though. Sometimes an official goal is definitely a motivation to do something.

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Another point for achievemnts would be the popularity of CTRA: there, people can achive licenses, thus giving motivation and reason to a rather pointles "grinding" of races in slow cars.

I'm probably in the minority here since I don't drive anything above TBO on CTRA anyway, but I really couldn't care less what my license is called provided I get to drive the cars I want to drive. It follows that doing something over and over in order to obtain an achievement really is just grinding.

Creating more time-sinks just to keep people playing is imo the wrong direction. You need to be entertained by the core aspect of LFS that you Do when you "login" instead of thinking "nothing interesting to do, let's do an achievement instead". It's a bit like being bored of boosting your guilds' alts in heroics and kara, getting steamrolled by gladiator teams at 1.8k and being sick of the sight of the "lolrush" effect in AV. It's a temporary distraction which deviates from why the game *should* be fun.

That said, I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should like doing in LFS. Achievements are fine, nothing wrong with them at all. Just that making them official makes them a "core" aspect, which is what I'd prefer was not the case.

TL;DR: I find achievements a gimmick. I won't cancel my subscription over them, but I'd prefer if they were community sourced rather than official.

I probably didn't make a whole lot of sense, but having written a wall-of-text of my own, I'm not throwing it away unused

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Out of curiosity, do you have anything from the horse's mouth to back this up? No census addons, please. They're unreliable at best.

Being a WoW player myself, I just noticed that prior to the Addon nobody played because there was nothing they could do witch wouldnt become useless after the addon arrived. Why go through a multi-hour raid to get an item if in a few weeks time, you'll get better items just by exploring the new areas? When the achievements came though, the server was filled again with high level players who just wanted to get those achievements.
Of course, a mmorpg rather appeals to the "gotta catch em all" crowd than a racing sim.

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I'm not sure about this one. Achievements don't have to be nice 'n quick, they could be challenging and long-winded too. Though, LFS isn't time based in the same way as WoW. "Instant gratification" is maybe more worth it because we don't earn better cars or parts the more time we put in (save for the cruisers).

It strikes down to balance. Most games have achievements which range from "picking up while simply playing" to "need so much effort that I won't have it ever" with everything in between. That way it's fun for almost everyone, as you have initial success quickly, but also some you really have to work to get them.

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Not sure I agree with "official thus fun". Drifting, cruising, destruction derby, tweak etc. can all be fun without being official. The official part sounds a bit similar to being able to say that I've done it but you haven't. E-peen. I do get what you're saying though. Sometimes an official goal is definitely a motivation to do something.

Well, you got a point there. E-peen is definately something that is one of the most important driving forces for achievements. Which isn't outright bad IMHO. It doesn't matter where the motivation comes from as long as there is motivation.

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I'm probably in the minority here since I don't drive anything above TBO on CTRA anyway, but I really couldn't care less what my license is called provided I get to drive the cars I want to drive. It follows that doing something over and over in order to obtain an achievement really is just grinding.

Still, there was a reason you chose CTRA over other servers which race he TBO class, and made the effort to earn to drive them instead of simply joining another server.

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Creating more time-sinks just to keep people playing is imo the wrong direction. You need to be entertained by the core aspect of LFS that you Do when you "login" instead of thinking "nothing interesting to do, let's do an achievement instead". It's a bit like being bored of boosting your guilds' alts in heroics and kara, getting steamrolled by gladiator teams at 1.8k and being sick of the sight of the "lolrush" effect in AV. It's a temporary distraction which deviates from why the game *should* be fun.

That is a very true point which can be countered somewhat by determining what is worthy of an achievement. If the achievements are mainly based on the main game goals instead of sidetracking it, you'd kind of have the best of both worlds. e. g. "drive cleanly" versus "win a race while crossing the finish line in reverse gear"

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That said, I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should like doing in LFS. Achievements are fine, nothing wrong with them at all. Just that making them official makes them a "core" aspect, which is what I'd prefer was not the case.

Well, how they are done exactly is open for debate. It could be an achievement edtor built in LfSWorld where any user could chose the parameters for an achievement within certain boundaries. It could simply be done by a forum contest, where the best 250 achievement suggestions are being incorporated. Also, even though I'd really have a stronger interaction between LfS and LfSWorld, you could make it just another desktop Icon in LfSW. Then those who cared could use them, while those who don't wouldn't need be bothered with it.

I've been a WoW player myself, but i no longer play (thank god). But if this achievements feature would arrive earlier, i may still be playing.
I think i'll give this a +1. I like the feature. This would be the easiest feature to keep up to date by devs, because implementing a new achievement wouldn't be as hard as coding a physics improvement.

Oh and by the way, don't let those humorous achievements unhidden. Wacky S2 players may find it funny to pursue it and crash at every race they can. That could lead to bad experiences... Just show them the moment they are achieved maybe? and don't be soo hardcore (yellow flag at every lap?? LOL)

I like the feature as well, so +1.

However, not only features about winning for the positive ones (even though I like the ones you posted).
I would suggest like calvinaquino that the bad features stay hidden, so that people won't try to cause crashes on purposes in pick up races.

In WoW, do you also get shunted off at every other turn while trying to gain your achievements? Do they make you play parts of the game over and over again that you have no interest in just so you can gain an achievement in a part of the game that you already enjoy without achievements?

I can only speak for myself, but motivation to race more would come with better-populated private servers. The 3-5 lap public pick up race n00bie shunt-fest is the biggest demotivator of all.

A previously successful "achievement-based" exercise in LFS was LX Month with Vic's autoX server app running. There is still room for exactly that type of feature in LFS online, and I think it would enjoy longevity as well.

A pat on the back for you though for seeking solutions and trying to energize the community. Good show mate.

As for other achievements, there is the hotlappers and world records for which it might be nice to get some more appreciation:

Masta kink: currently holds the most wrs
Mr lap: leads the main hotlap rank
Retired masta kink: has held the said 1st place at some point
Runner-up: in top 5 of hl chart
Fast son-of-bia***: has a wr

And some more:
Enemy of the state: has been banned or kicked more than 5 times in last 10 days
Rigged for win: has won his last 5 races (race grid size requirement >5)
Gangsta nubbins: has passed bawbag/norbi/sinbad on track (you get one per pass)
All guns blazin': Set the best time in last 5 races
Desire for destruction: has finished last 5 races with broken car
Mr rubber: has had a tire blow in one of 5 last races
Forum racer: has more posts than done laps OR hasn't raced in 6 months
Hc wannabe: Has done at least 2 races per day for the last 10 days
Oval evil: has done over 5000 laps on oval
Typing machine: jakg
Has a race car and has wrecked it: tristancliffe
Has big mouth: you
Has prostetic steel balls: beckyrose
Has extensive ball collection (is kartor): kev
lerts: lerts


Dunno though if any achievements would make anyone race more. Maybe in the beginning they'd work but it would just die off. And where do you put the achievements? For them to have any effect they'd need to be visible...

That's it really. And a glockenspiel (that word just makes me smile everytime )

The best thing that could happen is progress, new tire physics, new track and LX8 and it's all good for a while

Quote from Gunn :

In WoW, do you also get shunted off at every other turn while trying to gain your achievements? Do they make you play parts of the game over and over again that you have no interest in just so you can gain an achievement in a part of the game that you already enjoy without achievements?

Well, it depends. My account has been frozen since 1st August, so I never saw the achievements first hand. Some achievements are fine as I understand it, but there are other achievements which tend to be counteractive to how they're gained:
- graveyard camping to gain "killed 10 people without dying"
- intentionally refusing to cap flags in a CTF match to gain "300,000 dmg in a battleground"

I'm not going to go find a list of all achievements and describe how much they fail (some actually may not do so), but basically, there are achievements which have a negative effect on those around the achiever, and vice versa. People would actually realise and accept this if they weren't so hell-bent on achieving for the achievement and saying "lol it's in the game so fu" and camping yo ass for another 30 mins to get the most HKs -.-

/offtopic rant

@Hyperactive: there are the MHR, nutter, lap, distance etc. ranks atm, they're a bit hard to find though, I suppose.

Quote from Gunn :

The 3-5 lap public pick up race n00bie shunt-fest is the biggest demotivator of all.

I just don't see this at all, maybe I'm just lucky? There are some great races to be had on a lot of the pick-up servers.

As an xbox360 gamer, I really like achievements, and if theses achievements could be somehow tied to your forum account, i.e. showing "badges" it could be really interesting.

I like the idea of some of these achievements.

"Old timer" - Had an LFS account for over 5 years
"Ants in your pants" - Been registered with more than 4 LFS teams

LOL