Why do I have to think of the Lord of the Rings now? Oh, right...

I will never be able to look at Gandalf the same way ever again. THANKS.

Actually, i've no idea. Latency was big and 'servers' were full of lvl 50 players with 'super shotgun doom style' instakilling everything theyv met.

So it wasn't so good, technical side. That's the only thing i remember.

Ah, but that game is certainly the exception to the rule that achievements are pointless e-peen extensions.

Face it, the vast majority of achievements fall into four basic categories:
1. Ones you'll get automatically the first time you play the game (Congratulations! You killed your first enemy!)
2. Ones you'll get automatically if you play the game enough (Congratulations! You've killed 5000 enemies!)
3. Ones that require you to do something difficult (Congratulations! You've sniped an enemy from more than 2000 yards with a blindfold on and one arm tied behind your back!)
4. Ones that require you to do something weird and/or pointless (Congratulations! You've destroyed 200 trees with dynamite sticks!)

None of those make for particularly interesting conversations.

You say pointless, I say fun.

Ever since I beaten Mega Man 2 two on my best friends (he never made it) NES I love comparing gaming achievements. Heck, the only reason to buy Doom 3 BFG for me would be to show around that I can beat Doom 1 on Nightmare.

I can understand that some people don't need the social aspects that come with those things, but I really like them.

And destroying 2000 trees with dynamite sounds like fun!

I don't feel like achievements themselves contribute to the social experience. I was able to talk with friends about our gaming experiences since Amiga and 8-bit console times - you mentioned Mega Man 2 yourself. Do you feel that the social aspect has seriously improved since then? I rather feel like they make it easier to omit social interaction with other players as you get information about their gaming experience from a list with colorful icons. And frankly, when I talk to friends about our gaming experiences we basically talk about anything except the achievements.

And the idea to reward players for playing a game in a certain way isn't new. Painkiller actually rewarded you ingame through the tarot cards that you only got by beating certain challenges (which IMO is a much more sophisticated implementation of meta-challenges than in case of most modern achievements) and already X-Wing and Wing Commander had medals that required some skill to get. Showing my uniform in X-Wing to a friend was more satisfying than the thought that random people can view my online profile.

Let me help you with that...

I would never debate that people like them, they obviously do, but they mean absolutely nothing to me. I beat Deus Ex HR on hard without killing anyone because it was fun, not to get an achievement.

Something tells me you never played a competitive sport.

This.

We already do care tho, it's for RAGE.

I've played many sports, and have been succesful at things like being a Goalkeeper in football (soccer). I do hate the competetive nature of people though. For a team sport, there are way too many selfish and arrogant individuals.

Well, except for a couple of recent (and unsatisfying) group runs at Diablo III, I only play single player games and I feel no need to go into full "social multishit mode" anytime soon. /