Crackdown team wanted 200 achievements

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 February, 2007

All about rewarding the player.

Crackdown was originally set to feature 200 unlockable achievements, but Microsoft wouldn't allow it, according to an MTV report.

The website reports that the Real Time Worlds team planned for 200 and asked Microsoft to raise the cap.

"They were only allowing 50, and we were saying, 'Oh, that's going to cripple us,'" RTW's David Jones explained. "Eventually they announced they were going to a higher number." That number was 80, which Jones says is Microsoft's new maximum.

However, early reports suggest Crackdown will only offer 43 achievements, for a total of 900 gamerpoints - with the additional 100 that make up the boxed game's obligatory 1000 due to follow in free downloadable content.

Either way, the emphasis was on rewarding the player - with the developers even programming the clouds to do interesting things so that players who had scaled the half-mile-high agency building had something to enjoy.

Another reward players get for buying into Crackdown is a crack at the Halo 3 beta, and Jones also told MTV that he was pleased to offer that, despite suggestions it's hijacking interest in the game.

"We kind of knew 'Crackdown' would need as much help as it could get to get into players' hands," Jones said. "Like we've always said: It's a game player's game. It's not something that's going to sell in screenshot. So that was good."

We're not arguing, as you'll know if you saw how warmly received it was in our recent impressions of a full build of the game.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • spongebob #1 5 years ago

    What the heck? Why would MS cap the number of achievements in a game? If some dev really wants to spend a lot of time making those they really should be able to do that. These kind of artificial limits are bullsh...

  • sharky_ob #2 5 years ago

    Totally agree

    I can see the sense of capping the number of points, but how they are divided up should be up to the developer.

  • Glitch #3 5 years ago

    Can someone explain what exactly will be in the Halo3 beta? Is it like a free level or something to try out b4 it is released or is it a multiplayer map?

  • korky #4 5 years ago

    wrt achievements, you have valid points from a consumer perspective - but consumers don't have to manage / run test teams, certification and massively populated servers :-) What seems "trivial" or artificial from the outside is often (not always!) done for very good reason.

  • Skooch #5 5 years ago

    Yeah, I agree with spongebob, why not have one thousand 1pt achievements, that would be soooo cool, think how long it would take to get 'em all. Then there could no level of consistency between games at all, and then you could have games that offer 10,000 pts, and, and, and...

    /sarcasm ends

  • TheJanitor #6 5 years ago

    oh yeah, achievements are great rewards..

    [/sarcasm]

  • JonFE #7 5 years ago

    While I do agree there should be no set limit on the number of achievements, developers should, also, consider that with a set number of gamer points (max 1000), more achievements would lower the points each achievement scores (in the case of Crackdown, the 200 RTW achievements would score 5 gamer points each on average), which, in turn, could lower the sense of achievement. I mean, why go the extra mile for 5 lousy points?

  • PlugMonkey #8 5 years ago

    "wrt achievements, you have valid points from a consumer perspective - but consumers don't have to manage / run test teams, certification and massively populated servers :-) What seems "trivial" or artificial from the outside is often (not always!) done for very good reason."

    I might be entirely missing the point here, but it is the developer calling for more achievements to be allowed, not the consumer. I would imagine that David Jones is comfortably aware of the testing and certification issues of 200 achievements but wanted to do it anyway as he felt it enhanced the game they were making. Why shouldn't he be allowed to?

    I would imagine that the whole of Oblivion was a testing and certification nightmare, but there are no standards to restrict that.

  • Skooch #9 5 years ago

    Limitations on achievements are set for comparability, compatibility and logistical reasons. Yes, it would be nice to be completely free and easy, with no limits, but this could compromise the integrity of the very thing you are trying to embrace.

  • peterfll #10 5 years ago

    Well, you could have 2000 achievements in a game if there were no limit set by MS - each one giving you 5 gamerpoints? Isn't 5 the least amount you can give? Or is it 10?

    Anyway, can you imagine?

    You accessed the menu - achivement unlocked!
    You changed weapons - achivement unlocked!
    You inverted your sight - achivement unlocked!

    Sounds great.

  • BadBoyBonner #11 5 years ago

    Badly thought out by Microsoft - greater division of points would facilitate a wider dispersion of skill requirements for points achievement. Where even the most cumbersome player could get a few quickly for say changing direction in mid air - indeed they could almost become a prompt for those that have not spent the last part of their lives playing computer games.

    Most people do not operate in the "laws of computer games" and find it strange to be able to change direction mid flight for no apparent reason. Their realisation of this could be said to be an achievement. What is inordinately simplistic to a seasoned games player certainly is not to the uninitiated masses.

    In this case (Crackdown) the open structure was begging for more achievements as this adds' to the fun of the game for me. Take Just Cause for example - while no doubt a reflection of my personal tastes - one of my favoured achievements on that game was the 1000m base jump, finding the right place to jump off of and the right glide path required; while maybe a criticism that perhaps it was the highlight of the game for me, it does demonstrate what a seemingly throw away 10 point achievement (think it was 10 but happy to stand corrected) may add to a game.

    Come on MS relax the strangulating grip on sandbox games - you should be using the points system to add as much extra "content" as possible.
    Edited by 2 at 06/02/07 @ 12:19

  • spongebob #12 5 years ago

    Some people just love to defend everything MS does. Restrictions, when adhered by MS = great and wise! Restrictions, when adhered by some other company = most evil thing ever.

    I am sure even the limit of the HD size available for X360 currently is a blessing to the MS lovers. Surely it's just for the good of the consumer that they're limiting it! Think before you post! :)
    Edited by 1 at 06/02/07 @ 11:49

  • Kiigan #13 5 years ago

    I think it would have been awesome if Crackdown had 200 achievements. It is just one of those games, you want it to recognise and appreciate every cool thing you pull off, and if it doesn't you feel disappointed. There were times playing the GTA games where, when I did something totally awesome but the game never commented on it, I felt quite disappointed with the lack of feedback.

    At the same time, some limit has to be set somewhere in order to keep the achievements feeling valuable and a special reward. If it was constantly giving you a few points here every time you pressed a few buttons, I guess it would devalue the whole exercise.

    At least the limit has now been increased, and the facility for extra achievements for downloadable content is a big plus now too. I'd have been more keen on the Lumines Live DLC if there were some tempting achievements to aim for. Since I clearly am never going to get those bloody hard time attack achievements.

  • BadBoyBonner #14 5 years ago

    I am not sure the aesthetic quality of the achievement page is the strongest of arguments for the 80 item limitation.

  • sharky_ob #15 5 years ago

    Bizarre 3rd and 4th posts. It's almost as if you've not read the article or our posts before responding to them....

  • penhalion #16 5 years ago

    The number is capped because it gets silly if you have to do ludicrous tasks to get 1 point. This cheapens the whole points system. Soon you would have people complaining that the points in games were stupid. Image if scaling the agency building in crackdown got you a mere 5 points. Have you seen that thing. Do you realise the effort it will take to get to the top of it? Then to get 5 points, which is what 1000 divided by 200 achievements would have come out to.

  • Toothball #17 5 years ago

    @peterfll:
    Isn't 5 the least amount you can give? Or is it 10?
    I don't think there is a minimum. There are a few one point Achievements going around. DOA4 also offers a few zero point achievements for playing really badly.

  • BadBoyBonner #18 5 years ago

    Penhalion

    Personally scaling the tower in Crackdown is a lot easier (with a little lateral thinking) than the 1000m base jump on Just Cause.

    Why would you want to offer a lot of points to something that while difficult may be completely unnecessary?

    The achievement and kudos is in holding the achievement itself, not in the number of points it bestows upon your gamer score

  • BadBoyBonner #19 5 years ago

    P.S. anyone who can not be bothered to scale it, all that is up there is more agility skills orbs (perhaps you can make it to the top with out agility at max?) and if you can make it to the top of the mast on the highest one, there is a multi skill orb.

    I did try jumping from the top the mast to another area, but hit the water just before the barriers boundary. Can also report that entering the water from that height does no damage.

  • captainrentboy #20 5 years ago

    I got 5 points from Ridge Racer 5,then I got really bored of it and traded it in....(And by bored of it,I mean it got too difficult).True story.

  • BadBoyBonner #21 5 years ago

    Think I have played Ridge Racer for longer than it took me to complete Gears of War on Insane and still not got a single point off of Ridge Racer! lol

  • matt__jon #22 5 years ago

    So I'm guessing gamer points are something to use on XBL then?

  • BadBoyBonner #23 5 years ago

    Your right matt_jon, points are for use on XBL, "score" is a cumulative points system displaying feats achieved in games.

    When talking about points given by games, reference should actually be as "score" (and not points so sorry for any confusion) which mount up on your personal Gamerscore that attached to your gamer tag. Points are used to purchase games from XBL - although there are quiet murmurings of some kind of score to point transmogrification but we shall see.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #24 5 years ago

    The achievements of Ridge Racer are ridiculous. It takes ages to get them.

    I agree that there has to be a cap on how many achievements there should be. 200 achievements would mean one of two things: You get achievements for doing something the first time which is not necessarily something special and you'll end up doing anyway or it takes much more time than skill to unlock them.

    I liked the Dead Rising achievements. They were well balanced, some achievements for doing "stupid" things (like running over > 50k zombies) that are fun once you completed the game and some really required skill or changed the way you play the game, like escort 5 female survivors at once. The achievements really made me come back to the game after I finished it. Plus it did not take a whole lot of time to get them, especially racing games have a tendency to do funny things with the achievements. Ridge Racer is a very bad example (not nearly 200 gamerpoints after 40 hours into the game is completely off), PGR3 had some awkward ones too, Test Drive also took a lot of time but some of them were still fun (discover all the roads). Tomb Raider comes to my mind too when I think about games using the achievements in a good way.

    But 200 achievements is a definite no. Crackdown allows you to do a lot of stuff but I doubt there is enough stuff that is special enough to justify 200 achievements without unlocking 5 or so per hour. I like achievements I get by accident, if they are indeed something special, but 200 achievements can only ruin such an experience.

  • korky #25 5 years ago

    I would imagine that the whole of Oblivion was a testing and certification nightmare, but there are no standards to restrict that.

    That's the point - there _were_ standards to restrict that, the same as for every other game.

    Whilst the harvesting of gamerpoints is certainly not a level playing field as is, without some framework to work within it becomes ridiculous. As JonFE / Skooch etc rightly point out, if you divvy them up in tiny fragments or dole them out willy nilly, then "achieving" becomes meaningless.

    Oooohh, hang on, another cheque from MS just fell through the letter box ;-)

    Edited by 1 at 06/02/07 @ 16:42

  • DUFFKING #26 5 years ago

    @ peterfll

    IIRC, one of the GRAW ones is worth 2 points :S

  • spongebob #27 5 years ago

    But 200 achievements is a definite no. Crackdown allows you to do a lot of stuff but I doubt there is enough stuff that is special enough to justify 200 achievements without unlocking 5 or so per hour. I like achievements I get by accident, if they are indeed something special, but 200 achievements can only ruin such an experience.

    What if it's a huge game and having more achievements would split them more evenly? It doesn't mean that you get a point for starting the game. Of course it'd be up to the devs to sprinkle them evenly into the game. But hey, whatever, MS owns us.

  • NegativeZero #28 5 years ago

    Gamerpoint issues aside, I can't agree with his comment about the Halo 3 beta. Crackdown doesn't need that to sell the game - it needs to get the demo into as many hands as possible. Free demo discs in large retail chains would be a great approach. The demo is strong enough to sell the game.

  • kangarootoo #29 5 years ago

    Seems to me that games can be so wildly different from each other that hard and fast rules about how you can divide achievements and points are inherrently inappropriate.

    Sure, everyone can contrive some sort of "but imagine having a million achievements each worth 0.001 points each" example to try and make the concept look ridiculous, but all that demonstrates is their own inability to concieve of a game concept in which such a setup WOULD be appropriate.

    It should be up to the developer, barring MS mastering clairvoyance.