tl;dr: Link your Horizon and RetroAchievements account to start tracking achievements in FFXI! Doing so will also grant you an additional 5 mog satchel slots!
What we were used to
The FFXI community is very familiar with the achievement score model for tracking your character's progress. Horizon even implemented such a system on our website, before quickly taking it down due to server load issues.
The achievement score is oftentimes called a "Gamer Score", and creates a more judgemental community where players are judged based on a score rather than their effort and skills. Furthermore, it doesn't capture the full breadth of the game to encourage exploration, nor does it provide a great sense of progression as it usually requires large feats to advance slowly. We wanted a system like Steam achievements, where milestones are broken down into line items and given value individually, without a holistic "gamer score" model. This would foster more initiatives to explore multiple aspects of the game. Steam is too complex to replicate for a hobby project, however we were aware of a similar platform out there that could work!
Introducing RA
We are pleased to announce an integration between HorizonXI and RetroAchievements.org (RA, for short). RA has been adding achievements to retro games since 2012 and provides a community around exploring and completing retro games. It's a perfect match for Horizon, which aims to capture the FFXI experience in a more retro style. We worked with their team to become their first "standalone" game project:
You can track and share your progress with your profile page:
Get linked up!
You can link your HXI account with your RA account on the Horizon Account Page, after logging in. Here's how the flow will look:
We hope this provides a sense of exploration, accomplishment, and community to you all!
Aerec surprise perk
Linking your RetroAchievement account and talking to Lorekeeper Isa in Jeuno will give you an additional 5 mog satchel slots! (Not implemented at launch, coming soon!) Thanks Aerec!
Special thanks
This would not have been possible without the effort of the following people:
