(Heads up, if this reads as rude it's not intentional, it's difficult to find a balance with my writing style sometimes!)

I understand that some achievements are one-time events, that some might be seasonal for a while then not come back, and that some are yearly. I've got no problem with that system, I'm cool with there being achievements that a user has to have been active on the site at a certain time period to get. After all, that's a perk of having been here.

What I have a problem with is achievements not being marked as 'retired' at an appropriate time, and us users finding out well into a seasonal/yearly event that we can't get it.

The achievements in question are the "Get Kissed by [NPC]" viral achievements. They were not (and aren't at time of writing) marked as retired, there's no year listed in the name or description, there's nothing indicating that we wouldn't be able to get them this year.

It was only today, more than a week into the yearly Valentine's Day event, that we're officially told that they were supposed to have been retired. I find this rather unfair misleading and frustrating. I also don't understand why the "Get Kissed by a Staffer" was active and attainable this year, yet the others weren't. Since they're viral, they aren't dependent on NPC interaction- just interaction with people who already have it.

I hope that for all future event related achievements, something can be specified in either the title or description (such as '2014'), or have them marked as retired immediately after the event ends. For example, "Snowball Champion" has neither, so are we to assume it can be earned again this coming winter?

It's just really frustrating spending half of an event wondering why a not-retired achievement isn't working, only to find out it was an overlooked issue site-side.

Edit: misleading seems to be a better word choice than 'unfair' so I changed that.

It looks like that set of achievements came out in 2011 and nothing in it indicated that it was part of a plot or something that would ever be retired.

Pretty lame to retire an achievement like that with no warning.

I agree that retired achievements should be marked as such. Just a glance shows me that

"Defender of Good

Defeat Maleria the Dark Goddess in battle!"

is STILL not retired even though Maleria hasn't been a challenger in years and will never come back as one. And there are plenty more achievements like it hanging out in there with no indication that they're unobtainable.

is supposed to be going through marking retired achievements. and I compiled a huge ass list for him the other day (hope you don't mind the ping just a quick reminder just in case)

that was mentioned in the bug report thread about the NPC kiss achievements, And I'm glad it's being taken care of. Doesn't change the fact that this is frustrating and that there needs to be something in the future to prevent issues like this (and to prevent there being a need for huge-ass lists of retired but unmarked achievements!) :)

I hate how there're so many retired achievements with no indication they aren't obtainable anymore. I can't see how this is a hard thing to do either. It should take no more than an hour to see which achievements are retired and mark them as such.

Another achievement that is misleading is the "Spreading it around - Spread your disease to 15 other user!". Since you can spread your infections again, I'd assume it's obtainable. But I have my count at 0 so it seems it's retired with no indication.

Well yeah, things should be marked as they retire, ideally.

I got the "Get kissed by ____" set of achievements in 2013 so I wouldn't have thought they would be retired either

I understand why this is frustrating, but not sure how it's unfair?

Also don't get why Subeta would have of all their employees doing this. Aren't his skills as a programmer better used elsewhere? Surely marking an achievement 'retired' is something someone else could do...?

- The reason that I think it's unfair is because it's one thing to have something that says you have to have been here at x time to get it, another to not have any indication, which implies newer users can still get it. If it were marked, or had any other indication, I wouldn't think it was unfair. Perhaps I should put the word misleading instead?

As for the person assigned to fix this, I don't keep track of who does what, and perhaps it's an indicator of my ignorance of how the achievement system works, but I don't think it should be an arduous task to mark things as retired.

I think misleading would be a better word for this :)

To me, this is just an annoyance because while you can't get the achievement, you are also not really anything for wanting the achievement.

Now, if it was one that required you to make a purchase and you did only to find out the achievement was retired, I'd find that unfair.

Silly semantics. :)

Fair enough, I did reread what I wrote and changed the word choice, that does fit better for what I was trying to say. Thanks for pointing it out!

I had this a while ago, I bought the box of pastries and sent it someone, only to be told that it was no longer do-able. I really wish the retired/ completed achievements were on a different tab/page, so it was clearer which you still needed, perhaps the pages would load better if there wasnt so much on them.

I would have thought this achievement would be retired after the npcs stopped posting on forums lol. Surprised people think it's unfair?? Like what would you have been able to do since its only a few weeks outta the year you're able to get it? ..so of you weren't active last year, or the year before to get it, it wouldn't matter if there was an announcement...

What I do want is the retired achievements to be retired an stop showing up because the whole page really is confusing. Speaking of achievements.. is it really necessary to have an achievement for every single thing people do? Kinda defeats the purpose of an achievement. You know?

I completely understand the frustration with this. Keith went through and marked those in the Pandemic/Survival as retired a week or so again when I mentioned it in the SB, but still missed a bunch (look, I'm not going to get the ZOMBIE 4EVRRRR. Never. Ever. No matter how much I try. Mark it already)

I'd be pissed if I ended up spending lots of sP on an achievement just to find out it was no longer achievable, so this seriously needs to be fixed (and seriously any other staff member other than Scarsdale can do it because I'm pretty sure he's got more important shit to do, but I do appreciate his willingness to jump on it)

The thing is, though, they're viral achievements. A user who was online to interact with the NPCs could spread it to other users who weren't kissed by NPCs. So they didn't necessarily have to be retired just because the NPCs stopped posting. I do get your point, and it's a valid one, I just disagree because it's viral and spread user to user. But I'm cool with it being retired, honestly, but they should have either been marked wayyy before this current event, or not have been retired this year since they weren't marked.

I wish they weren't viral in the first place since it defeated the purpose of them, but I'm getting off topic. I'm sorry you weren't able to get them and I understand the disappointment!! Subeta went achievement crazy on my hiatus. That page needs a re code, I don't even look at it to see what I still need to do because half the things are retired but "in progress" like what??

I don't think these particular achievements should have been retired in the first place, though that's not what this topic is about.

I fully agree that ALL retired achievement need to be marked as such. That would also help us in determining which achievements are really glitched and which you can't get because they aren't awarding them anymore.

Also don't think that particular set of achievements should've been retired, but that's beside the main point here.

I do agree that any and all achievements that can no long be obtained should be retired. It's very confusing to users, even those of us that have been here a while.

In addition to what everyone else has said (god yes, please someone recheck the achievements and retire all the retired ones that aren't yet tagged), I'd absolutely love a filter function where we could choose to view only the active achievements that bumps the retired ones off the screen or to the bottom.

It drives me nuts having to scroll through multiple pages littered with retired achievements trying to figure out which ones are actually still active.

Funny, because this WAS supposed to be the recode. It just appears halfheartedly in a state of semi-brokeness where pages freeze upon loading, lists of achievements appear twice in a row after said freezing, retired achievements aren't actually marked as so, and you have to look at the required items list AGAIN to earn an achievement you should already get by owning the items necessary.

There were good ideas with this "revamp" but it seems unfinished, neglected, and well... poorly executed overall. 😳

(Seriously though I cannot visit the achievements page without my browser freezing up. The old achievements did not do this to me. Stop this madness.)

Oh and not to mention all that madness about claiming and re-claiming and double, triple, quadruple checking to make sure that we had all our achievements while moving from the old system... The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.