360 Avatar Awards... where are they already?!

maddawg IAJI

I prefer the term "Zomguard"
Feb 12, 2009
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I have three games that offer Avatar awards (Left 4 Dead 2, Halo Waypoint and Splosion Man) and they aren't anything special. Most of the time, they are just unnorginal articles of clothing, most of which are just simple T-shirts. The Avatar items are pretty cool though. Better then the clothing at least, but they are a pain to unlock.
 

Sarah Kerrigan

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Jan 17, 2010
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Left 4 Dead 2..Splosion Man..Halo Waypoint...Toy Souldiers.....Perfect Dark..and some arcade games do as well.
 

scnj

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Nov 10, 2008
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I've got some stuff from ODST through Waypoint. I was hoping for more stuff from more games though, since I flat out refuse to pay for avatar stuff.
 

TheJakester16

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Mar 29, 2010
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scnj said:
I've got some stuff from ODST through Waypoint. I was hoping for more stuff from more games though, since I flat out refuse to pay for avatar stuff.
yea halo waypoint gives clothing etc depending on the achievements you have in the halo games for 360.
 

WilliamRLBaker

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Jan 8, 2010
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hm I got alot of avatar awards from halo waypoint and a few other games who's names escape me right now.
oh yeah, splosion man, perfect dark.

I have a huge load of gamerpics from games and achievements.
 

GodKlown

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Dec 16, 2009
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I was searching on this topic the other day and all I saw was perhaps three or four titles that actually had this feature, two of which were XBL Arcade games... which you have to shell out MS Points for anyway in order to play the games. I smell a vicious circle of XBL just eating MS Points like Pac-Man eats pellets.
Initially I was in favor the avatar awards because at least it was something to show for the work you put in towards playing a game, aside from the gamer score which doesn't really mean anything. All the consoles jumped on the avatar idea, but it doesn't seem like any of the big three are really making the avatars worthwhile. There's just a few games on XBL that make use of the avatars in games like Kingdom for Keflings. Bomberman Live says it supports the avatars, but after seeing the demo video for it yesterday I was hard-pressed to see where in the hell you were using your avatar since all the characters looked like Bomberman.

I dislike stupid achievements in games, and thought the avatar awards were a good alternative to just wasting gamer score points on an achievement for saving your profile or starting the game... just one of those small features that is highly under-used. I think I'll be writing an email over to XBL to see what the hell happened there.
 

happysock

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Jul 26, 2009
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The only games I've got that have the awards are Lips and Left 4 dead 2, I would love it if more devs actually used them in their games.
 

TheEarlOfGrey

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Feb 5, 2010
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I have only seen two games with them: Left 4 Dead 2 and 'splosion Man. And that's it...the only award i got was for downloading Halo Waypoint and getting the Oracle...

There should be more but in all fairness I usually wait until something is in the marketplace that i want that's free or is 80 points so it can soak up all the odd points left from the 2100 is get.
 

squid5580

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Feb 20, 2008
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AjimboB said:
Halo Waypoint gives you ODST armor, a helmet and Guilty Spark.

Sadly, this isn't a game, and you don't even have to do anything for these items, so they aren't really "awards."
AjimboB said:
khaimera said:
AjimboB said:
Halo Waypoint gives you ODST armor, a helmet and Guilty Spark.

Sadly, this isn't a game, and you don't even have to do anything for these items, so they aren't really "awards."
I thought you neeeded to get specific achievements or high gamerscore in halo to get them? I only have the guilty spark.

I also have some lame Splosion Man shirts.
Oh, really? I forget. I guess I already had the achievements when I got waypoint, so it just gave them to me automatically.
Ya you unlock all of them but the Guilty Spark from ODST.
 

GodKlown

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Dec 16, 2009
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So I went ahead and dropped an email to Xbox Live to find out from the horse's mouth about what the deal is. The answer I got? They misunderstood my entire message, and somehow construed it as I couldn't use my avatar items, and the email went on at length about how to repair that problem, which wasn't what I asked at all. Typical in a way, I suppose.

Therefore, I can only guess that the avatar awards got lost in the shuffle of Microsoft focusing more on Natal than the awards, which hopefully is a better direction in which to focus on. Still, it is kinda sad that probably just the arcade games are going to feature this concept in the future. Just strange that they basically force users to use the avatars, and naturally expect them to shell out money to personalize them. The whole award system seemed like a good way to keep gamers involved in their avatar system, and at the same time be able to show their affections for their favorites games without having to spend money not only to buy said games but also to show their friends which games they really like. Capitalism wins again.

Sidebar: I plan on emailing XBL back to see if I can get them to understand what I was asking them in the first place. Short of them actually paying attention, perhaps I'm going to have to get one of them to come on my show to explain it in person. I'm not holding my breath on that backup idea working... but at least it's worth a shot. I completely expect them to just resend me the same message and ignore what I was asking them AGAIN.
 

FallenJellyDoughnut

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Jun 28, 2009
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Pigeon_Grenade said:
Blame Developers using drugs, Or Squirrels

in the Absence of Sane Reasons, a Insane Reason makes sense
Those Squirrels again?! DIDN'T I TEACH THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS LAST TIME?!
 

Virgil

#virgil { display:none; }
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Jun 13, 2002
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GodKlown said:
So I went ahead and dropped an email to Xbox Live to find out from the horse's mouth about what the deal is. ...
You're not going to get an answer to the question of "Why aren't enough games using your new Xbox Live feature?" by emailing Xbox Live customer support. Even if they had any idea what you're talking about, they're just customer support, they aren't going to be able to give you an answer.

The answer is quite simply that Avatar Awards is a new feature. It's unlikely that many games that were already nearing completion when it was released are going to alter their dev cycle to try to fit it in - the ones that have are the exceptions. XBLA games are on shorter development cycles, which is why they're starting to show up in new releases. You probably won't see many of the Avatar Awards showing up in major game releases for several more months.
 

GodKlown

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Dec 16, 2009
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Holy crap Bobcat, finally an answer that I've been looking for. Thank you very much for the link.
Virgil, the reason I was concerned in the first place was because it has been nearly a year since this program was released, and I was surprised it wasn't used more thoroughly in newer releases. With devs creating more and more DLC for recent games, I'd have thought they might incorporate some avatar awards with the DLCs, but I've just been disappointed and I hoped others felt the same way about the issue.
Unfortunately, MS doesn't have the support I was looking for, which was why I went through their customer support. But by the fact they completely misunderstood what I was asking did not give me a sense of confidence in their support staff as they (the person I had answer my email was named Zen) did not tell me that is was the wrong avenue to explore this problem, but by the fact they didn't understand what I was asking might have had something to do with it. We shall see if/when they respond to my email from today trying to clarify the question I originally asked them. I don't think technically it was the wrong way to go to find an answer. I am a customer with an XBL account, and I was looking for an answer to support their system. Sorry if you disagree with my approach, but at the time it appeared to be the logical course of action available to me. Had you responded earlier in the week, I could have saved time by not bothering to email them in the first place, but it is a good experience to have to learn about how effective the XBL support staff is in general. This was my first attempt in contacting them about anything, and it will certainly affect any future decision I have about contacting them in the future with a more serious issue regarding their hardware/software.