Divine Wind - Developer Diary #4
Divine Wind- Dev Diary 4 – Achieving More
And so another week of development has passed and in spite of mysterious illnesses sweeping across the land some work has actually been done this week, some of it we are still not ready to reveal but there is one new feature that will make its first, but not last, appearance in Divine Wind that we will tell you about, and that is Achievements!
Well, to be perfectly honest I'm not going to tell you so much about achievements other than to say that we are really excited to get this new feature into our games. Europa Universalis III is a game where people have always set up their own goals, what we are doing to now is bringing in a way to not only suggest alternative goals for you to achieve but also mechanics to brag about them to you friend and enemies on the forums and in other places.
Before I’ll turn you over to the guy who actually will tell you some more about achievements I’ll just take the opportunity to tell you out that if you don't want to play with achievements you don't have to and with all the cool improvements we have lined up for the coming weeks, I'm sure you won’t be disappointed.
So over to Shams...
Achievements - What are they good for?
Why achievements? In EU of all games? and why is this guy writing a dev diary? and why should I care?
Valid questions!
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Shams and I'm a producer over at the publishing branch of Paradox Interactive. I'm writing because Paradox Achievements and Paradox Connect was an initiative started by us. Therefore I felt it would be a good idea to explain our reasoning behind wanting the Team to design, build and implement achievements in one of our most beloved games.
When we introduced achievements/Paradox Connect I started FAQ thread in the hopes of quickly answering most of your questions. Have a look if you haven't yet : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...wanted-to-know
If you don't look through the thread this is what you need to know: Achievements are voluntary, if you want to keep playing as you always have done, you can still continue to do so.
For those of you who don't know what achievements are according to Wikipedia: "In video gaming parlance, an achievement, also sometimes known as a trophy or challenge, is a meta-goal defined outside of a game's parameters. Unlike the systems of quests or levels that usually define the goals of a computer or video game and have a direct effect on further gameplay in the form of unlocking other quests or special features, the management of achievements usually takes place outside the confines of the game environment and architecture." Achievements became popular after being introduced on the Xbox360. So why are we introducing achievements in the PCiest of all PC games?
Basically we feel that achievements make the game more fun and the team agrees with us. While not for everybody, those who do like achievements have a great time going after those hard to get achievements and earn a little more bragging rights. But achievements aren't just there for bragging rights, they can also be used by the designers to teach players about the game and spur them into new parts of the game previously undiscovered.
Additionally, one of the most important jobs we in publishing have is to keep our own games competitive in today's gaming world. This means not only keeping pace with new standards (GUI, controls etc) but we have to try to be innovative ourselves as well. Paradox Connect and achievements are a part of that. The team were hesitant at first, but after a bit of convincing they're on board and as excited as we are in publishing.
Achievement example:
"New World Achievement" - "Be the first European nation to establish a colony in the New World". Once you manage to do that the game would award you that achievement and say 10 Paradox points. The designers try to be as creative as possible and reward a wide range of things in the games.
Europa Universalis 3: Divine Wind will introduce roughly 50 achievements together rewarding 1000 Paradox points. Going forward almost all Paradox games will support achievements. Meaning that you'll be able to rack up thousands of points just by keeping on playing our games.
We have lots of fun stuff planned for achievements and our games down the line. We'll tailor them to suit our gamers and what makes them happy. The nice part is that Paradox is Paradox, which means that we're indie and we decide ourselves exactly what we want to do with achievements. I don't want to go too much into details because it'll spoil the surprise...but let's just say that much like the 200k celebration forum icon there will be unique achievements for you guys to unlock as well.
So come December the beta version of Paradox Connect and achievements will be launched. It’ll take a while before all the wrinkles are ironed out but I’m sure you’ll make your voice heard and help us out to develop, tweak and improve them.
If you are interested in the design process behind the achievements I'd love to discuss them further with you. Let me know and we'll start a separate thread.
Looking forward to your response and questions!
Sincerely,
Shams
Allez là prochaine fois je commanderais un pain au chocolat pour me faire pardonner. 
