Slashdot Launches User Achievements 1582
In a concerted effort to compete with more popular MMOs like World of Warcraft, we've decided to add an Achievement system to Slashdot. We've retroactively granted around 900,000 achievements to our logged in users. You can view them from your user page, or you can see my list if you're curious what a REAL achiever looks like. Many achievements have been sprinkled throughout the system and are awaiting discovery by dedicated Slashdot users, but a starter list of achievements is in the FAQ. I'll toss you one freebie: you can register your wow main for points if you're that kind of person.
Now go forth and achieve!
Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, how are you computing the total number of Achievements? If you add up my achievements (and if I add the powers of two I get closer) but it doesn't come out to be the number you posted.
Also, if I have CmdrTaco's attention, why not leave this up? You've written the code for it and although it will certainly tax your database (default awards were handed out on different days) to update these values for everyone, why not leave it in place? Are you afraid this would increase karma whoring (it's in powers of 2 anyways) or produce negative effects?
For those of you without Warcraft characters, you add it to your user page and then it appears on the right of your user page as a hyper link to the armory (check out my user page). Then you get a +1 achievement with Level 80 (or I guess whatever level your main is) on your Achievements page.
+5 Troll (Score:2, Interesting)
Is a +5 Troll mod an achievement too? I'd love to find out... Please?
bugged (Score:3, Interesting)
The obviously should have tried this on the public test realm [slashdot.org]. Hope you like all the qqing about impossible to achieve achievements. Nubs. 5 digit uid indeed.
Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I (and many many others) have an achievement [slashdot.org] called "The Maker" ... what does that mean? It's not listed in the FAQ.
I don't have that, so it's something you did that I didn't. Does that help?
You also got "The Contradictor". Any idea how you got that? And any idea how I got "The Tagger", considering I don't even know how to tag an article (I think you have to be a paid subscriber or something, which I'm not).
I'm beating you on the number of consecutive days of Slashdot reading. Wait, should I be proud of that?
Grinding reputation (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Come on (Score:3, Interesting)
They've certainly gone to a respectable amount of effort with this one. I was expecting Taco's achievements page to be static HTML, but it seems we all get them.
I was surprised by that, too. I'm trying to decide how far back they went in the database to come up with the numbers.
Re:The April Fool (Score:4, Interesting)
Now we just need little icons representing each of our achievements next to our names.
how about respect to the elders? (Score:3, Interesting)
as a vertern who only checks every now and then compared to every second 5+ years ago - what about us veterns? should there be a 5, 10+ year member status? :) still, fun stuff, gives boasting points :P
Re:bugged (Score:5, Interesting)
For a number of years I've wanted a slashdot greasemonkey extension called something like "slashback" which would restrict all comments to people with UID lower than your own, thus returning slashdot to the same user community that got you to sign up in the first place.
I tear up a little just thinking about it, of course not enough to actually write such a thing.
Maybe next year, Taco? And, please keep the achievements, I love them! I'll come back tomorrow and be logged in, I promise!
Re:Come on (Score:4, Interesting)
Not far enough IMHO. For some of them, it appears they went with the most recent that would get the achievement. However, I'd really like it to go back and find the OLDEST.
Then again, they may not have relevant data from the early years.
Re:Missing Achievements (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't believe that they left out "UID as a prime".
I would have had it.
*sigh*
Re:Slashdot achievements (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Posting in the april fools article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ME ME ME! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hehe, got around the lameness filter with HTML escape sequences! (Maybe the lameness filter needs some improvement?)
Re:Slashdot achievements (Score:3, Interesting)
WoW currently has a meta-achievement for clearing basically all of the achievements associated with current raid content, some of which require you to do fights in very odd ways, others of which are just plain hard. This is currently seen as "the big one" of achievements, not least because it rewards you with a very fast dragon to ride.
I think the slashdot equivalent would have to be as follows:
"Reach all of the achievements listed below:
- Make a +5 moderated post explaining why Windows does something better than Linux.
- Make a +5 moderated post explaining why Apple are rubbish.
- Make a +5 moderated post explaining why you don't like either Nintendo, or any first-party Nintendo game.
- Make a +5 moderated post explaining why you will be voting Republican.
- Make a +5 moderated post explaining that sometimes correlation can at least point towards causation.
- Make a post complaining about the moderation of one of your previous posts which does not get moderated to -1.
- Make a +5 moderated first-post of 300 words or longer on a front-page story.
- Make a +5 moderated post on a sotry which is at least 5 days old at the time of your post.
- Make a +5 moderated post containing absolutely no punctuation.
- Make a +5 moderated post complaining that you can't possibly see how this story is either "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters".
- Submit a story which receives at least 1000 comments.
- Submit a story which is placed on the front page and centres around a link to your own blog.
- Submit a story which is placed on the front page and then submit a duplicate story, also placed on the front page, within 2 weeks.
Reward: Unlimited mod-points"
Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score:3, Interesting)
blank achievements count as 1; integer score achievements count at face value; exponential score achievements count as the exponent+1, because those begin at 2^0.
As you surmised, C.Taco pads his out by stuffing as many points as needed in "the cheater." He'd still be 38 to your 25 (and my 13) without cheating.
Re:The April Fool (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm trying to figure out if pairing achievements with webforums is genius or the beginning of the end of a useful internet. Maybe the end of the era of work productivity, at least.
sigh (Score:3, Interesting)
Only 2 points for my ID, i'm so sad. Why no achievement for meta-moderating 5 days in a row?
Vanity Pets? (Score:2, Interesting)
So does this mean we're gonna start getting Slashdot vanity pets at holidays? :)
Everyone who logs in on New Year's Day gets a "Red First Postling"!
Ding (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't mind me... on my way to achievement whoring.
Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought it was going to be over 9000 :( [youtube.com].
Or 8000 in the original Japanese...