Comment by gridspy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gridspy | Hacker News Reader

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How about : Any achievement the game rewards you for is a fake achievement.

Whenever I go up a level in WoW, or gain a kill in Quake, or beat a boss and pick up his loot I have a fake achievement.

Sure, there are some real achievements in there, but they are not provided by the game world - they are almost a side effect. Most likely they are not the reason that people are playing these games, but they are a useful excuse to continue playing.

Consider how much real achievement we would see if all the motivated hackers put down WoW and started up their development environment of choice.

I'm not saying that games aren't cool (I love computer games and have been strongly addicted in the past) but don't delude yourself into thinking that they are more productive than applying yourself directly to the task you are trying to master.

I might get HN points (i.e Karma) from posting this comment. That is not my goal, I don't care about those. My goal is to inspire fellow hackers enough to pay attention to my cool start-up (Gridspy). HN doesn't give me "pay attention to me" points - I don't think that is really possible.

> Consider how much real achievement we would see if all the motivated hackers put down WoW and started up their development environment of choice.

This is a big part of why I quit WoW late last year. I wanted to take one last stab at self-employment before turning 40. (Yes, yet another wannabe iP* developer) While having a day job and playing WoW prior to the achievement system wasn't a problem for me, having to be self-motivated to work with a constellation of "Achievements" at arm's reach probably cost me about 3-4 months of self-funding time getting underway.

Off topic, but what is 'iP*' ?

I would hazard a guess that it is: iPhone, iPad, etc

Consider how much real achievement we would see if all the motivated hackers put down WoW and started up their development environment of choice.

But there's a lot of truth to the fact that human beings need recreation. We need down-time when we're not building, making, doing, etc. There's a lot of engineers who, if they put down WoW and fired up Eclipse would just stare at the screen for hours wondering what to build next. Or they'd disappear into an equally "unproductive" passed time like email, solitaire, or social news forums like this one.

That is true. However, you need to choose recreational activities carefully - hopefully ones that will further your goals. Also, choose activities that are non-addictive (and recognise the addictive elements in those you do choose) so you can remove them from your life when they are no longer useful.

I know that WoW is fun, or EVE online more so (for me) but I stay well clear because I know that way lies madness.

HN, Twitter and even Google Analytics are relaxing for me, and all borderline addictive. They also have benefits to my business.

Just make concious choices about how you relax and then you are on a good path.

IMO, an achievement is "real" when your actions are what separates a reasonable chance of failure and success. Thus the classic MMO grind fest, or a slot machine could be called fake achievements, but most PVP kills are actually fairly complex achievements.

Your skills are real, your achievement is meaningless.

I am an awesome Natural Selection (the FPS RTS) commander. I have lead epic campaigns back and forth across the game map against huge odds. When I played, my team often told me that I was doing a great job.

Then, I won. The game went "well done" and all that hard work turned into nothing.

Sure, I had skill, but I had achieved nothing but entertainment and wasted weekends. At the time I was very happy with that. I'm not satisfied with that any more.

After the heat death of the universe everything done by anything becomes meaningless. Your actions increased the happiness of other people for some period of time, abstractly that's about all you can do. Granted creating a fun video game or a more effective solar cell are on a larger scale, but it's still the same basic thing.

True. However some achievements will last after I am dead, some will not. I'm more interested in the former.

If you die sooner your achievements won't have to last for so long to qualify. (Though that's probably not what you want.)

I guess your best stab at achieving immortality in your works is mathematics.

I love developing software. To me achievement is a happy customer.

Who cares if all memory of me is erased in 300 years. Hopefully I will have helped to advance some technology in that time.

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