Stars should incorporate an "Achievements & Achievement Points (A&AP)" system into their site. The reasons being that this system would greatly increase volume of many reg and non reg players. A system like this would greatly encourage many micro stakes players, and achievements could range from winning multiple tourneys in a month to playing for 100 hours in a month.

Any poker player who has played xbox gmes, ps3 games, or a MMO like "World of Warcraft" will tell you that their A&AP systems encouraged them to play many many more hours then they normally would have spent on the games. They might say they did so because they felt like they obtained something for their hard work, or because it allowed them to much more easily track their progress.

If stars had such a system they could award players things like exclusive freerolls, chances to play against top poker pros, or even exclusive gear/authored books. Achievements could strictly award points or could award access to the prizes (based on difficulty and time consumption to obtain).

Stars already has a great VIP system (the best and its not even close), however while it is a system that awards people for playing volume, it dosn't really encourage competition on the micro and macro levels. Having a much smaller scale achievement system would encourage players of all stakes and abilities to play more. Many micro players could use the A&AP system as a way to show off to their buddies that they are "better players" because they have obtained more achievement points then them or obtained access to exclusive gear.

Also many losing players could feel as though they accomplished much more then obtaining a few hundred/thousand fpp's that are not worth much at all. They could see that they are only a few AP's from obtaining an autographed Hat/shirt from their favorite pro and thus decide to deposit again when they may not have in the past.

A system like this would be exceptionally easy to put into place, the only difficulty with it would be proving the increased volume, and then awarding prizes based on difficulty without giving out more money then would be obtained from having the system in place. However such a thing to figure would also be possible and cheap to do.

I am not suggesting that stars should remove their current system or change it in anyway, i am suggesting that they add this to what they currently have and use the increased profits from it to award prizes.

Example of a A&AP system for stars:

Achievement :::::::: Award
--------------xxxxxxxxxx----------------
Make 15 Schd FT's in a month:::: 10000pts + Freeroll entry to Yearly ran ME Seat give away

Play 1000 games in a month::::: 200pts+ 10000$ freeroll

Play 3000 games in a month:::: 1000 pts + 10k freeroll with players + ps pros

Win 50 9man sngs in a month:::: 2000 pts+ freeroll for NAPT Seat

Play 10k cash hands::::: 50 pts

play 100k cash hands:::::: 2000 pts + Autographed Hat available for 1500 fpp

XXXXXX Items available in store for fpps+APs XXXXXX

Pokerstars wallet - 3000 fpps + 1000 AP's

Pokerstars pens - 2000 fpps + 500 AP's

Autographed T-shirts - 1500 fpps+ 500-20000 AP's (depends on who signed)

+ many more exclusive items!


These are obviously basic ideas for use of points/awards, and the system could be preety big. There are so many things stars could award AP's for and so many types of prizes stars could give for AP's or for certain achievements (especially just exclusive gear available to only those with xxx Ap's).

A system with awards for players of all games and limits that is also highly competetive (even for those who dont play HUGE volume), like an A&AP system, would greatly encourage players who dont generally play much to play alot more or even to play higher limits then they normally do. Increasing volume of micro players would greatly encourage increased deposits (to get the achievements!) and would be great for both players and the site!


Cliffs: Stars needs and Achievement Points System like Xbox 360/ps3/WoW to encourage micro players to play more/higher and encourage higher volume overall! It would encourage more volume due to the competitive nature of the system and feeling of achievement.

Stars should have the A&AP system+ their current system with no changes.

i mean, how could i not like it?

"more free money please"

No, thats not what im suggesting at all. I actually believe that stars would make a large amount from having such a system. I am suggesting that they increase the competitive nature of their rewards system and encourage more players on a micro level to play by giving them a sense of accomplishment even if they lost money.

Terrible idea. We don't want people to achieve better results, we just want them to play more. I didn't read the OP so I'm not really sure what you're sugguesting, but VIP club pretty much does the whole trick.

nice1
like it! def think it will make non-regs to play more

i didnt read the OP tbh.

Read the cliffs....

i didnt read those either

cliffs of cliffs plz

+1

If you like sex with hot girls, say : "I agree with the OP"

Oh, should of been the title of the thread then imo.

TLB, VIP system, that weird thing with the planets

I mean do we really need more?

you're missing the point, if most of these things are volume based or even pure rungood fest based (i.e. the winning 50 STTs in a month) then people will chase the achievements even if they are not good players, the existence of the achievements wont make it any more of an incentive for people to improve their game than the fact that tourneys have prize money at the top does. i mean as an example does the "cash in 19 ftops tourneys and win a million dollars" make people desire to improve their game strongly? not necessarily, but it makes them want to play every ftops to chase it.

thanks TM for saving me a few minutes. the learning curve to achieve most of these goals is too big for randoms to study but we all know they'll try to get there anyway.

doctor poker: zima does good work in the marketplace as much as i hate to say it so he can make posts like this here, you however should be banned for not reading the op and bashing it regardless

I think it could work for sure. I rolled my eyes when the idea behind Achievements was revealed on the run-up to the Xbox 360 launch and felt that it was a huge gimmick that hardly anybody would be interested in. I couldn't have been more wrong.

People would buy games specifically on the 360 rather than PS3 so that they could gain Achievements (this before Sony responded with Trophies). Hell, people buy games they're not particularly interested in playing just because they have easy Achievements so they can boost their 'Gamerscore' -- which is worth absolutely nothing other than some kind of misguided bragging rights.

If you added incentives and allowed people to purchase exclusive stuff with the achievement points then I think it could be a huge draw to the more casual players.

Yea awesome idea, if you could put together something to put to pokerstars, like a realistic set of targets. I for sure know people who would play 100 or so $3 S&G if there was an achievement for it, it would bring far far more players to the games, and i doubt any of them would stop plying to go learn to play better!

The problem with achievements for cash games, not that I care, but they would be infested with droolers trying to 24 table, timing out all over the place. It would be hideous for regs.

Idea is ok in theory but I think it would never work.

As someone that's been trapped into playing more by achievments many times this seems like a very good idea to get casual players to play more.

One thing I would change though would be to have only a few achievements per month (say 5 or 7) and have them all change after a month. Or maybe add 3 weekly ones with enough points for Moneymaker memorial coins and the likes, just so people always have some reward/award/badge to clear for a few close to meaningless points =)

If you balance it well enough so people have some incentive to play at higher stakes as well this could easily be the best thing ever for game quality.
This could also help promote some of the rarer games on stars. Imagine the action if there was some badge/reward for playing x amounts of hands at stud8 or 2-7, with x ideally being higher for the low levels and lower for the high levels, so people want to suddenly play mid-highstakes games they aren't too familiar with. God so many possibilities!

For 1500 FPP's, you can be my wingman.

OMG WOULD WE GET BADGES?

Thought about it some more:

Maybe make Tasks that are "easy", "medium" and "hard" so fish don't get scared off by the system and can easily start collecting some of the easy awards for low points, luring them to get some medium ones thereafter.

You might even make a challenge out of it like "complete all easy tasks of the month to get an extra x achievements points" or "complete all medium tasks of the year to get y" like a 500$ cash bonus or a nicer thing from the store, or a wcoop entry or something. Depending on how hard those are it might be more or less.

You can also make so many different challenges, like win 50 pots in No-limit cashgames with 72 or "get 1k/5k/15k in prizes from the 9mans" (which is cool bc people can get it by grinding low or shotting high! or cash in 15 rebuys or whatever. Win 7 headsupgames in a row at 50$+, 10 at 20$+ or 15 at 1-20$.

This looks like a really good system, I'd gladly give away like 500 to 1k in vip earnings if that got implemented well because the value for us would be so much higher over the year.

This thread has potential

fyp

i dont think it could hurt, i vote yes