Greetings Achievers!
By now, those of you who habitually click on the "New" tab on the Achievements page will have been rewarded for your diligence and seen that Project Shirley is now visible! Let the tournament planning begin! I say planning and not earning, though, because these achievements are not yet live. As with card expansions, we are implementing a new, week-long prep period to give you all a chance to properly review the new options and construct your decks accordingly. Project Shirley achievements will go live on Friday, February 26.
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A COMMUNITY OF HUNDREDS
Shirley is a transitional set of sorts. It is the last of our Community-themed projects, and is still leaning towards that feeling of achievements-in-bulk. That was fine for The Study Group, who had to work all semester to pass their finals once or twice a year, but they've graduated and moved beyond that; and so should we.
The next release begins the cycle of the The 100, starting with Project Clarke. The 100 haven't got time to lose if they want to stay alive on the ground, and our new achievement sets this year will follow their example (and you will also see some of that in Project Shirley). Smaller, sleeker, but still covering our bases; achievement releases will come out more often with more current material, hoping to alleviate some of the wait between card release and achievement release, and reducing the frequency of Achiever's Remorse (having a new achievement come out when have you've already played that deck).
THE GOLD STANDARD
A common topic of achievement discussion has been surrounding gold achievements. Be the first to earn something and get the gold! This seems like a good idea, and perhaps works better in video games, like our achievement inspiration World of Warcraft, where (theoretically) all players gain access to playing and earning new achievements at the same time. Realistically though, that just isn't the case in a CCG. It takes time to design and construct decks. It takes time to get people together to hold tournaments. There just isn't a fair way to present equal opportunity for earning the coveted "First!" to all Star Trek CCG players.
So we are doing away with the gold!
Well, at least as we know it. Gold achievements will still be available, and still be based on timely earning, but the timeline will not be so immediate. Anyone who fulfills the requirements of an achievement after the time of its release and before the release of the next achievement set will earn gold. This eliminates the need to build a recklessly constructed deck doomed to failure on opening weekend just for the sake of achievements, as well as putting everyone on more equal footing for finding tournaments to attend in the given time period. Don't get too complacent, though. As I said, achievement releases will be coming more and more frequently. You should expect another before the end of Regionals season. But don't worry, we'll give you a few weeks notice so you can try to get one last gold in under the wire.
SPICE IT UP
Variety is spicy in life, or something like that, so despite slimming down the release size, we've made sure to have a little bit of everything (a precedent we intend to continue). We've got new OP achievements for Crossover block, dilemma achievements for both games, new design achievements for 1E (like Plenty of Captains and Center of Authority) and 2E (like Our Own Dominion and Escaping Detection) focusing on strategies from the most recent expansions, and even some new Tribbles achievements for playing with Troubles.
Overall, there should be plenty to keep you busy until Project Clarke makes her way to the ground. And plenty to upgrade to gold!
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