Daily Trials for Olympic Candidacy

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about achievements, rewards, and vanity factors.  In WoW and on the Xbox, they have implemented a simple system that makes you chase seemingly arbitrary goals.  It's pretty much in line with the casual sense of accomplishments you associate with playing a game.  Not much different than a highscore, more categories have been included for your ego and viewing pleasure.  Cynically, it's a blatant time (and subsequently, money) sucker.  What's interesting to me is that it challenges you to find out what kind of gamer and person you are.  Are you neurotic and a hardcore completionist?  How dedicated are you?  Do you get into it as intensely as you get out of it?  Or do you take your time to chew and supposedly really appreciate all the flavors?

I believe that with the inclusion of a vanity system (items in exchange for achievements), even more people will be involved in this arbitrary chase for accomplishment.  And why shouldn't gamers be rewarded for their dedication?  Non-game impacting changes of course (the balancing required for game changing mechanics will destroy developers and alienate casual gamers.)

There might be an argument that the vanity takes away from the focus of core gameplay.  But the counter is that vanity will translate to longevity and longer exposure to the game.  Which in turn will translate to further appreciation of the game as a whole.  

This brings me to my other train of thought.  The human accomplishment.  Implementation of this system is as far fetched as the chip system for the human brain.  Much like in the Matrix, chips of info should be directly uploaded into the brain.  Language, skills, history.

Once our mapping of the brain has extended that far, we can undoubtedly track every statistic of the human experience.  What is the top running speed that you have ever reached?  Highest attitude ascended?  Longest time to go without sleep?

And this is where the reward system comes in.  Vanity rewards and status should be given out in real life. Of course this will create record chasers, but that's been going on forever.  This system simply allows us to be more aware and explore channels that were previously untracked and mostly ignored.  Who knows what kind of links and limits we can find once the human race is aware?

Aware of our abilities, possibilities, and put our creativity to use.  

Oh, and this stemmed from watching the citizens of Shanghai compete in daily olympic trials.  Crossing the sidewalk is like training for the 100m dash.  You can "walk" and make it to the middle island...but if you run, you can make it all the way across.  They have never heard of skyways and aerial bridges here.  Sumo wrestling must also be a big event in the next olympics.  Every subway rider is at least in line for the Jonokuchi (lowest ranking) division.

The squandering needs to stop.