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5 Reasons Why Trophies Are Better Than Achievements

paulhunter | July 20, 2008 | News | Playstation 3 XBOX 360 
An opinion piece from NextGen Player examining the reasons why Playstation 3 Trophies are better than Xbox 360 Achievements. This article is part 2 of 2 of a NextGen Player feature article.
With the launch of PS3 firmware update 2.40 on July 2, Sony has officially launched their own gamer reward system to compete with Microsoft's well entrenched Achievement system. Microsoft was the first the out of the gate, and has had two and a half years to refine and improve their product. With this experience under their belt, is Microsoft's Achievement offering better than their rival's Trophy system? Or has the extra time allowed Sony to develop a superior reward system?

In part 2 of our feature article, NextGen Player will examine the reasons why Trophies are better than Achievements.
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    slumpy monkey | July 20, 2008 | reply
    This is old, I remember seeing this on GG before, there was also a one on why achievements are better than trophies.
    I also do not see how :
    Reason #4: Retroactive Trophy Support
    makes trophies better than achievments?
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      TurMoiL911 | July 21, 2008 | reply
      Yeah, I don't see how that is an advantage over achievements.

      The achievements have been with the Xbox 360 since launch. Sony should have had trophies from the start.
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    paulhunter | July 20, 2008 | reply
    The article on reasons why Achievements are better than Trophies was part 1 of 2. This is the second half of that feature story.
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      slumpy monkey | July 20, 2008 | reply
      I know, But I thought I saw it before.

      I also noticed that it is you who put the article on next gen gamers.
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        paulhunter | July 21, 2008 | reply
        Yeah, I'm the writer of the article. If you saw another article it must have been a similar piece.
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    1831 | July 21, 2008 | reply
    I fail to see how retroactive trophy support makes trophies better than achievements. Nevertheless, a decent argument for trophies, but I still like the numeric value assigned to a 360 achievement more thanbronze/ silver/ gold/ platinum. PS Home support sounds good though.
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    Newcloud | July 21, 2008 | reply
    id say it would be good at first but when u get to a high level it would get annoying because u would need more exp to get to ur next level.... like it would take more trophys to get to level 3 then it would to get to level 2
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      Drogo Baggins | July 21, 2008 | reply
      Yeah, I see what you're saying with that, New Cloud.

      I mean, eventually, people will probably have to start playing 2 or 3 games just to go up one level.

      I'd find that annoying, personally.
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        Fatal Error | July 22, 2008 | reply
        For real if you're worried about that stuff then something's wrong. Maybe if there's going to be some prizes for getting higher levels I'd be concerned but in reality it's not that big of an issue.
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          Drogo Baggins | July 22, 2008
          quote Fatal Error
          For real if you're worried about that stuff then something's wrong.
          No, not really.

          If they're going to add something like trophies, shouldn't they be effective on the gamer and the replayability of his/her games? I could be wrong, but I'm quite sure that that's the entire point of Trophies. Adding replayability.

          Maybe they're there just to annoy you by popping up on the screen every time you do something cool in a game? I'm sure that's it.

          Not all people will care about them, but many surely will.

          It will suck for those who care to get several trophies from a couple games, and make very little progress on their "Trophy Level".

          It's like trying to add more replayability to MGS4 by adding a trophy you get for killing 100,000,000 people in the single player campaign. It would be cool to get in the end, but it would take forever and you'd feel like you've accomplished nothing up until then.

          It's discouraging, so to speak.
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          Fatal Error | July 22, 2008
          Again, people shouldn't care about their level at all. Yes, trophies give you a few "goals" that will get you to play the games a bit more, but that's it. If you really care what your "trophy level" is then you should starting spending more time outdoors.
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          HisServant77 | July 23, 2008
          I have to agree with fatal error here. The levels shouldn't really matter (though I prefer Sony's levels over Microsofts, because it's easier to read and compare numbers like 7 vs 10 than 235698 vs 235736). The trophies, to me, are pretty much just like skill points for insomniac games. Extra challenges to make and be happy you made it! The levels . . . shouldn't be that important to people.
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          Seeker X | July 23, 2008
          If it's a completionist issue you're talking about, then it's really not much different from having an incomplete amount of Achievements on each game.
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          Drogo Baggins | July 23, 2008
          This could eventually start to get tedious, though. I'm just saying that some people will care about their level and they'll want to add to it.

          Is that not true?

          Lol, there are people who rent games just to get achievement points. You don't think people will care about their Trophy Levels?

          Yeah. Okay.

          Also...

          quote
          it's really not much different from having an incomplete amount of Achievements on each game.
          It's not like that at all. It would be like doing all achievements for a couple games, but not really getiing any credit for it until you completed more achievements on a third game.

          Like, it would work like this in "360-Achievement" terms.

          Say, you have 2000 achievement points, and you'll need 3000 more to get to 5000 points. You play through two games, get 2000 more points, yet your score still reads as you only having 2000 points. Then you have to play through another game, get 1000 more points, and THEN you'll finally get credit for all the points you got in between 2000 and 5000. Get what I'm saying?

          I'm sure that would get annoying to atleast some people.

          If it wouldn't annoy you, that's perfectly fine, I'm just trying to say that it'll possibly not be liked by some people for that reason. I'm allowed to think that the system has a flaw. I'm not trying to just say it's garbage, because it's definitely not, I'm just pointing out something that I think some people won't like.
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    SvR2008 | July 21, 2008 | reply
    I don't own a 360 so I don't know much about Achievements. I kinda like the idea of trophies but I know one day I'll get too frustrated with them and just give up.
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    anatomyofme | July 21, 2008 | reply
    I think getting a platinum trophies and leveling up makes for a better system then just having a score of 67,954.. At least with the trophies you can work for a platinum trophy and level up then just getting 10 more points and bringing your score to 67,964.. They made there system sorta like an RPG. And in my eyes thats more fun.

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