Without Achievements

Written by Sketch (submitted by P.O.)

Ninja all the fruit, crush all the candy, get 30 headshots with the pistol in one Team
Deathmatch. It’s a good thing WeasleBot can’t track my K/D ratio like Halo did. It’s never been about the achievements. Gamification is meant to keep users plugged in and engaged with whatever app/game/platform they’re pouring their lives into, and yes, have some fun along the way, of course. Beyond keeping PAX engagement up, our achievements are meant to reinforce our mission as well. Plant, Grow, Serve. There’s a reason one of the achievements isn’t ‘Post only with the same 4 PAX each week’. The achievements we have to date serve the first and third F’s directly, but more importantly, they support Fellowship.

The 2nd F, at it’s most basic structure, is the relationship between 2 PAX. To grow the relationship both PAX must build experiences together. With a group of PAX the relationshipis built and experienced collectively.

Recently at Sasquatch, Impact forgot to bring the shovel flags (for the first time ever, no doubt). We ribbed him the entiretime. “You just cursed Disc Jockey’s VQ!?” “Where do we even take the count-o-rama picture?” “Can’t mosey back to Start X, no idea where it is!” Even Piano Man put him on blast in his VQ Preblast: “with FLAGS”. Ha!  The collective experience of laughing throughout the beatdown bonded all 16 of us and I can guarantee we won’t drop it anytime soon.

Moments like that wouldn’t be made, shared, or bonded over as strongly or as frequently if we weren’t chipping away at our achievements. As coincidence would have it, Low Pass and White Hat both earned ‘Holding Down the Fort’ that very same beatdown. Its easy to imagine a world where a nice warm fartsack would’ve called their names instead and they would’ve never known the flags were missing.

I’ve got a lot of social energy that I love to share and I deeply value laughing with friends. That’s what I’m in pursuit of. More shared comedy, more shared joy, more bonding. Achievements are mile markers on the way to long lasting relationships. Without ‘Centurion’ on the horizon, I might’ve missed Primer’s soapy coffee, without ‘Be the Hammer, Not the Nail’, the Liberty Hill police might not have pulled me over in The Green’s parking lot right in front of all the PAX, without ‘Cadre’ there might have never been a Great Motivator Debate. Our pursuit of achievements facilitate the experiences we have together ITG.

Without achievements those moments that bond us together would happen less frequently to fewer PAX and have less impact (although we all could do with a little less ‘Impact’ sometimes ;-) ). And not just the good moments. The serious ones would happen less too. The heartfelt CoTs, the six-sweeping, the CHAD 1000x, the show of solidarity for a San Antonio PAX’s 2.0 going through a heart transplant, and countless more. Consider tackling an achievement you thought might be out of reach. Your efforts might net you some smiles, some warmth, and some fellowship. At the very least, you might help some others net thosetoo. I’m not trying to get preachy, but if I can earn these achievements, so can you.

Thanks for reading - Sketch