Visual Studio ​Achievement​s; they're not Xbox live right?

3 hours ago, blowdart wrote

More seriously a stackoverflow score might be ok on a resume.

Yes it would, I would list that along with gamerscore and other things.  It's actually something you can look up instead of someone just listing C# expert on their resume.

The thing that makes cheevos relevant is how many people use it and if it's easy to identify.  Since there is now an ecosystem where the phone, tablet, pc, and console all use these cheevos most people know what it is.  If you have different types of achievements scattered all over the place, it devalues itself in a constant loop.  So if you're in the microsoft environment, there should ONLY be Xbox live achievements.  I don't know the correct process, but can you suggest a support ticket to make these achievements part of the Xbox Live achievements?

Aw, man! Does this mean that all the fun is over now?

Cheevo Unlocked: Response by Duncan.

@Duncanma:  Good to hear you might consider moving it to the Xbox Live ecosystem.  And maybe they should change the name from Xbox live to something else, because it's more than just xbox.

Now when (I predict in 3-5 years) the Xbox live team or who controls the achievements contacts you and asks you to transfer those achievements to the Xbox live system, you must be very careful to do it right.

I guess there would be 2 way to do it.  Erase the current ones and start over, or do a transfer.  I would suggest erasing everyone because of the problems that could come up.

If you do transfer, here are some things to look out for:

You don't want people to be able to copy someone's saved file and have all the cheevos pop on the transfer.  I hope you can't do that.

I also hope you are recording the mili-seconds when you get an achievement.  Xbox live does and it's one of the ways they catch cheaters.  Last year someone with the largest following on TA got caught for cheating which rocked the Xbox live world.  It was due to the mili-second timestamp which I heard were all set to 0 on hers.  I take no stand on this issue.

Other issues:

If you have achievements in VS2010 and VS2012, do they both count like xbox games in different regions do?  I would say yes you need to give double cheevos for those.

Also what are the penalties if you're caught cheating on Visual Studio Achievements?

15 minutes ago, Dan276 wrote

Also what are the penalties if you're caught cheating on Visual Studio Achievements?

You get to program in COBOL.

@Duncanma: I say don't even bother. It's just weird.

Just because it's a bad idea and you shouldn't do it, doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to hint at it. Dan's slavering is just far too entertaining.

Achievement Unlocked: This thread deserves popcorn

*snip*

No, we aren't going to hook these achievements up to the Xbox Live system.

*snip*

Sit back in your recliner

close your eyes

relax

allow the "cheevos" to wash over you

3 hours ago, blowdart wrote

*snip*

Oh lord no. he does actually dev work. In JAVA

Jon Skeet is the reason I stopped regularly trying to answer questions on Stack Overflow. I mean, what's the point when you know he's going to answer every single question anyway?

9 minutes ago, Clint wrote

@Dan276: Speaking for the team here, I think we'd love to know how you cheated.

Oh no, I haven't cheated.  I'm just wondering what the penalty is?  For example, in xbox live they will erase your cheevos and maybe delete your account.  This happens often and Microsoft monitors this.  

I noticed there is a leader board for VS Achievements.  If there is no penalty for cheating and/or no one is monitoring the site how do I know that the leaderboard is legit? 

2 hours ago, Dan276 wrote

Also what are the penalties if you're caught cheating on Visual Studio Achievements?

If you're a skilled enough developer, you should be able to rewrite the vsix to give you free cheevos (aka "freevos") without getting caught.

@Psychlist1972: I wish I had shirt like that. Without one, I feel like such an undercheever.

Wow! Check this out. This completely cheapens the noble concept of earning cheevos. Good thing it's limited to WoW instead of XBL.