Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Noble Map Pack.

I actually will NOT be on to run the show, you kids will have to figure it out on your own if you want to play.  Currently 8v8 Big Team Battle and 4v4 Team Slayer are the top contenders in the poll, as an FYI for whoever ends up being party leader.  Also, the Noble Map Pack was released today.  Most of the clan was planning to pick it up, so that may be a fun activity.

Playlist Selection

Check out the playlist poll at the top of the blog.  Vote to voice your opinion.  If you leave a comment with your preferences as well, I can tailor playlist selection just to those that are on-line at any given time.  Otherwise, the voting is anonymous, and I will go with the majority vote even though people voting may not be playing.

I'm starting to hear more and more grumbling about the playlists that I pick for us to go into on clan night.  This is your opportunity to provide some feedback into what you'd like to play.  We are somewhat restricted in our player roster and party sizes in what playlists are available to us.  I'd like to know what YOU would like to play when we have 4 or more people on clan night.  We most often have 4-6 players.  In general, this is how I pick our playlists:

• 1 player: I'm the only one on and you are all late, so I'm annoyed.
• 2 players: Multi-team while we wait.
• 3 players: Multi-team or Team Slayer while we wait.
• 4 players: Multi-team or Team Slayer depending on daily challenges, or Firefight later in the night when we don't expect anybody else to sign on.
• 5 players: Invasion or custom game.
• 6 players: Invasion or custom game.
• 7 players: Custom game or Big Team Battle.
• 8 players: Custom game or Big Team Battle.
• 9+ players: Custom game.

This is my thought process behind the available playlists:

• Rumble Pit: 8 players, 7 losers, 1 winner.  That means most (if not all) everybody in the party would lose each game.  I don't generally see a lot of benefit for us to ever play in this playlist.
• Living Dead: Zombies is fun, but I will start a Custom game with our preferred settings if people want to play zombies.  Matchmaking settings are a little weird (Evade for humans, 2-3 starting zombies) and end really fast.
• Team Slayer (64% win, 1.33 K/D): This is our preference with 4 or less or with 6 or more.  With 5-6, it is customary that the 1-2 odd guys out throw the game (e.g.: assassinations only) so that the other 4 guys get a win.  Benefits the greater whole.  With 8 people, we just play normal because half the clan always gets a win and we log matchmaking stats/challenges too.  We can also boost challenges/achievements with 8 people, but requires that everybody play nice.  And much of the clan tends to have A.D.D., in that people get impatient and start screwing around, making it harder for those trying to boost to get it done.  Which makes it takes longer.  Which makes the A.D.D. folks more restless.  And the cycle gets vicious.
• Team Swat (50% wins, 1.24 K/D): Headshots only.  The clan, in general, sucks at headshots.  So we suck at this gametype.
• Team Snipers: Sniper guns for everyone.  The clan, in general, sucks at sniping.  So we suck at this gametype.
• Team Objective (50% wins, 0.50 K/D): Capture the Flag, Assault, Territories, etc.  As is evidenced by the 50% win percentage, the clan, in general, sucks at being coordinated.  So we aren't real great at this gametype.  We've never been good at Objectives in Halo 2 or 3, it's not a surprise in Halo Reach either.
• Multi-Team (3% wins, 1.47 K/D): 6 teams of two.  We rarely have 12 people on clan night, so with 3-11 people there are better playlists where we can play together.  For 2 people. I really like to go here and play games like King of the Hill or Oddball where we ignore the hill and just get kills instead.  We lose the game, but rack up hella kills for challenges.  You can see the high K/D ratio, but low win percentage.  With 4 people we can go and mess with 8 other people and still have a good chance of voting the game we want.   However teams often drop when they don't get the vote they want, so with 6 players we may have 2-3 people drop which means there aren't enough randoms left to get the kills we need.
• Big Team Battle (54% wins, 1.11 K/D): 8v8.  You'll see us play this sometimes, but the objectives are generally harder to get than in Invasion, so I avoid this unless we have more than 6.  If we have 6 or less, that means we have 2 or more random people that seldom participate as part of the team.  Generally speaking, random people either don't have mics plugged in and therefore are bad teammates, or are too annoying in team chat and have to be muted.
• Invasion: 6v6 (64% wins, 0.88 K/D).  The objectives are super clear, and there's only two maps to learn.  People complain, but in my opinion, this is the best game type for us with parties of 5-6.  Despite the lower kill ratio, we win in Invasion a lot more than we do in BTB.
• Firefight: 4 people vs the AI.  I'll occasionally bring us in here late at night when everyone else is gone, but games can be up to 30 minutes so it sucks on clan night if people are waiting to get in.
• Score Attack: Single player.  Duh.
• Co-Op campaign: We can do custom games for this, no need for matchmaking.
• Team Arena (63% wins, 1.05 K/D): Competitive 4v4 Team Slayer.  Nobody is really good enough to play here, or dedicated enough to actually get rated in a season.  To give some perspective of the competition here, there are five divisions, I ranked in Iron, the lowest of the five divisions.  darknorpo ranked in Bronze, the second lowest.
• Doubles Arena: Competitive 2v2 Team Slayer.  See above . 2 players only.
• Custom games: Both in Halo 2 and Halo 3, when the on-line competition got too good and it wasn't fun to get face pwned, we had more fun in custom games (zombies, Jenga, freeze tag, etc). 

If you like custom games but don't like the ones I have for Reach, feel free to find new ones for us to try.  You can save your own custom gametype, make a new map, or find somebody else's.  bungie.net and forgehub.com are both good resources.  I want clan night to be fun for everyone.

Objective Gametypes

There will be a poll later this week about what kind of playlists you prefer.  I know, however, that many people don't know what some of the games actually are.  Here's a breakdown of the Objective gametypes that we play less frequently:

• Invasion: 6v6, Spartans vs Elites, two rounds with each team playing both sides.  Each round consists of 3 stages.  Stage 1 and stage 2 involve two territories each where the attacking team is trying to capture one of the two territories by standing inside of it.  Stage 3 involves a core that is in a protected room that must be stolen and moved to a score location.  If the defending team stops the attackers at any given stage when time runs out, the defenders win and the round ends (does not progress to the next stage).  In stage 1 and 2, if there equal numbers of attackers/defenders in the territory itself, the time will NOT count down.  In stage 1 and 2, if the territory timer is stopped between 1 and 7 seconds, it will reset to 7 seconds if the attackers are all killed.  In stage 3, the core can be returned by the defenders, and Bubble Shield is a stage 3 loadout available to the defenders to help them do that.
• Invasion Slayer: 6v6, Spartans vs Elites, one round with 3 stages, no side changing.  Kill the other team to win.  There are random territories scattered throughout the map.  Capturing the territory will trigger a power weapon or vehicle drop.  The drops are team specific, Spartans will unlock UNSC gear, Elites will unlock Covenant gear.  Drops come in 30 seconds after the territory is captured and CAN be stolen by the other team.  Spartans start with an advantage because the Magnum is more effective on the big maps than the Elite stage 1 weapons.  Spartan advantage continues with the stage 1 drops because they get Sniper Rifle and Rocket Launcher, compared to Elites who get the Focus Rifle and Plasma Launcher.  Elites get the advantage later on with Banshee drops, but Spartans balance that out afterwards with Scorpion drops.
• CTF: 2 to 8 person teams, Capture the Flag, has 1 Flag, 2 Flag and Multiflag variants.  In 1 Flag games, attackers try to get the enemy flag from their base and bring it back to the home base.  In 2 Flag games, both flags are active so both offense and defense are required.  In Multiflag, there may be several teams, each with their own flag.  Beating somebody down with the flag is a 1-hit kill.
• Assault/Bomb: 4 to 8 person teams, has Neutral and 1 Bomb variants.  Kind of the opposite of CTF, teams try to take the bomb into the enemy base and arm it by protecting it for a number of seconds before it blows up.  1 Bomb has the bomb spawning in the attackers' base, Neutral has the bomb spawning in the middle of the map where both teams try to make a play for it before switching to offense or defense.  Beating somebody down with the bomb is a 1-hit kill.
• Crazy King: 2 to 8 person teams, King of the Hill.  Your objective is to stand in a territory marked on the map, you score by racking up time in the hill.  You must be in the hill by yourself (or just with your team) to score time, teams may contest the hill  (and stopping the clock) by being in there at the same time as you.  The Hill continually moves randomly around the map so that you can't just camp it.
• Headhunter: 1 to 8 person teams.  Kill people to get their skulls.  You can hold up to 10 skulls at a time, with a number above your head that indicates to everybody else how many skulls you are holding.  When you kill somebody, they drop all the skulls that they were carrying, with a minimum of 1 if they weren't carrying any at all.  You score by carrying skulls into territories on the map.  The territories move around randomly like in Crazy King.  Score 10 skulls at once to instantly win, otherwise most skulls at the end of time wins.
• Oddball: 1 to 8 person  teams, normal and Hot Potato variants.  There is 1 skull on the map, your objective is to pick it up and hold it.  Score is number of seconds your team holds the ball (skull).  If the ball falls off the map, it will immediately reset at the initial spawn.  Beating somebody down with the ball is a 1-hit kill.  In the Hot Potato variant, the oddball is actually a bomb that will eventually blow up when the timer runs out.
• Stockpile: 4 to 8 person teams.  There are several neutral flags scattered throughout the map, and one "Stockpile" territory at each team's base.  Your objective is to pick up the flags and bring them back into your Stockpile.  Flags are scored every 60 seconds, so you  must drop the flags in the Stockpile and defend the Stockpile until the timer runs out and they are scored.  Flags may be stolen, or picked up and thrown out of the Stockpile to prevent scoring.
• Territories: 4 to 8 person teams, split up into offense or defense, two rounds, teams play both sides.  Team on offense tries to occupy territories around the map for long enough to capture them.  Once a territory has been captured, it can not be un-captured.  Whichever team captures more territories when it is on offense wins.
• 3 Plots: 4 to 8 person teams, one round.  There are 3 neutral territories on the map, teams score by capturing territories.  One a territory has been captured, the timer will continue to count and score for the capturing team until it is recaptured by the other team, even if nobody is in the territory.  Territories may switch possession as many times as teams can capture them.  The general strategy is to try and hold 2 of the 3 plots at any given time.

The idea is that all of these gametypes require good team coordination.  If just one player doesn't feel like participating in the objective and feels like just running up their kill count instead, it creates a huge disadvantage in the objective.  If any player on the team isn't familiar with the objective or the map, it also creates a huge disadvantage.  In objective gametypes, there are very few 1v1 encounters like in Slayer where a Lone Wolf may be able to hold their own.  They are intended to be 4v4 or 8v8 encounters.  If one side has players that are not fully participating, a 3v4 encounter is almost always a losing proposition.

Reach Challenges: Heroic Demon

This is in response to a challenge earlier this week to get 10 Elite kills in Firefight Matchmaking.  There are no Elites in Gruntpocalypse (obviously).  In the other single-player Score Attack playlists (Firefight, Sniper Attack, Mythic Attack), there are at most six elites in the last wave and it can be really hard to get there with enough lives to kill them.  The best place to get Elite kills are in standard Firefight matchmaking, in Rocketfight or Sniperfight.  I prefer Sniperfight because you can just hang back and pick off the Elites.  On many maps, there are sniping locations where the rest of the enemies will largely ignore you and you can just focus on your personal objective.  Some examples:

• Waterfront: Across the field on the cliff that overlooks the entire map.  The enemies will actually largely ignore if you hang out here quietly.  The biggest threat in Sniperfight is the Focus Rifle Jackals directly to your left.  I recommend loading out with Bubble Shield so that you can deploy it as soon as the Jackals start shooting.  Then you can aim at them, creep out the shield, and fire as soon as your gun pokes out while you stay safe.
• Courtyard: Leave the spawn room and run to the far right of the map, camping out behind the large propane tank-looking thing.  As long as you don't try to spawn kill the Phantom drop ships and stay hidden behind the tank for a few seconds, the enemies will all funnel towards the middle of the map, away from you.  You'll largely have easy pot shots at whomever you want to kill with basically no repercussions because the other AI enemies won't know where you're shooting from.
• Beachhead: From the spawn, head up the stairs to the left immediately in front of you and camp out on the balcony there.  The rest of the players will generally run around the map like a-holes trying to spawn kill so that you can get your snipe kills without anybody coming to bother you.  Bonus?  You'll have the easiest view from there for the Wraith kills.  Wraiths take 4-6 shots from a sniper rifle to kill.  I recommend reloading after 2 shots when Mythic is on so that your teammates don't steal your tank kill.  You get huge points, 2 Elites per kill, and can work on your Firefight commendation.  Active Camo is good here so that you can cloak and take out the Wraiths without worrying about them seeing you and shelling you in response.

Reach Challenges: Multiplayer Boosting

Do you ever look at a challenge that requires 30 kills or 10 assists in one game and think that it's stupidly impossible?  Since most of us don't play much Rumble Pit and have low TrueSkill ratings, that's often a decent choice to go and rack up some big kills.  However, Rumble Pit maxes out at 25 kills, so how do you get 30?  4v4 games max out at 50 kills, so it's hard to get 30 for yourself when it's split amongst 4 people.  Big Team Battle is possible if you can get snipe or tank, but there's always a mad rush for those so it could just be a big waste of your time if you're not the one of eight people to get the right power weapon/vehicle.

My preferred playlist?  Multi-Team.

In multi-team, even in Slayer, kill count is to 50, split only among 2 people, so it's much easier to get 30 kills for yourself.  If you can get into an objective game like Crazy King or Oddball, you can ignore the objective and just get kills...then there's no limit to how many you can get.  And since everybody else is going for the objective, they'll largely ignore you while you shoot fish in a barrel.  Also, since there's five other teams, there's plenty of opportunity for people to steal your kills so that you get your assists.  One very effective tactic is picking up the sniper rifle with active camo, camping someplace quiet, and getting body shots as the lambs run into the slaughter.  Assist Spree!

Reach Challenges: Cook 'Em and Clean 'Em

Pretty regularly, there are daily challenges for getting jetpack kills.  These can be frustrating to get because it may seem inconsistent about whether or not you get credit for your jetpack kill.  The key here is that the enemy has to die while your jetpack is active.  That means your are holding down the jetpack button while he dies.  If you have been flying around and feathering your jetpack (like you're supposed to) and get the headshot between bursts, it will not count because the game doesn't recognize that your jetpack is on while you get the kill.  You can get kills however you want - body shots, head shots, grenades, melees all count - as long as you are holding the jetpack button when they die.  You will see the Firebird medal pop up when your kill registers correctly.

Now that you know, knowing is half the battle.

Reach Challenges: Single Player Boosting

Happy Thanksgiving!  Today is the first day that people are eligible to pop the 16,000 cR weekly challenge!

I previously posted about how to exploit the save game glitch to get Flawless campaign finishes over and over again.  There are two other main methods to boost as a single player, one in Campaign and one in Firefight.

• Red Ring of Death: This video shows how to get fast, cheap kills on ONI: Sword Base.  Don't worry if you don't get a ton of cR per game, it may only be a handful especially if you've already leveled up a bunch of your commendations.  You'll get cR for getting new Commendation levels (up to Onyx Max) on Splash Damage, Walking Tank, SpecOps, Leadership Element and Cannon Fodder.  This is also a good way to pick up stray kills for daily challenges that just require kills in any game mode (at least 10 kills/minute).  Finally, there are occasionally challenges for killing Specialists or Leaders in Campaign so again, this is an easy way to pick them up.
• Firefight pwnage: There's an achievement as well as occasional challenges that require you to get ridiculous points in Firefight.  You'll note that this does not have to be in matchmaking and can be done in a local game.  The link here points to a custom game type in my Fileshare that you can download and use for yourself.  It's all Elites where you are invincible with bottomless clips.  That means you can just run around launching Rockets like crazy to run up your score without worrying about dying.  Takes about 45-60 minutes for 1,000,000 points solo.

Reach Challenges: Campaign Scoring

Sometimes there are challenges like Points Pyramid (score xx,000 points) that require you to turn on a bunch of skulls and try to rack up a high score in Campaign.  The skulls do things like limit ammo, increase AI dodging of grenades, turn off the HUD, turn off radar, upgrade enemies, etc.  The more skulls generally, the harder it is.  But it's something you have to do in order to get a high enough score.  The key here is that the flying levels are largely unaffected by skulls because you have infinite ammo and Banshees/Phantoms/Seraphs are mostly unaffected by skull upgrades.

• Long Night of Solace - Rally Point Alpha: This is my preferred level for picking up Campaign scoring challenges.  Alpha checkpoint will put you in the Sabre.  I play on Legendary, with all skulls on except for Iron, which gives you a score multiplier of around 15x.  You can actually play with Iron as well since I don't die in the time it takes to get the challenge, but just in case you do die, this save you from having to restart.  I picked up the 40k challenge in 7 minutes.  Note that on-line it only shows 32,100 kills since I think you lose your time multiplier if you quit out of the level early, but the challenge still pops and sticks even if your final score ends up below the target.
• New Alexandria: Same thing as above, turn on a bunch of skulls since you'll be in the Falcon and shooting down Banshees.  Concentrate on Banshees only and ignore the Phantoms, that way you won't get swarmed.  See where OD picked up the 40k challenge in 9 minutes.

I prefer the Long Night of Solace because the bad guys are easier to see, Banshees are "fire and forget" kills because the missiles lock on automatically, and it seems to a little faster.  Your choice, both are pretty easy.

Reach Challenges: Finishing Campaign Levels

There are lots of campaign challenges that simply require you to finish a level with some specific conditions.  Challenges like Foggy Notion (Heroic, Cloud, Famine), Like a Glove (Heroic, Catch), Flawless Cowboy (Heroic, No Deaths) sound a lot harder than they actually are.  Most of the time, you don't really have to "play" the level at all and can be done in about 5 minutes.

Nightfall has a path and a glitch that allows you to sprint through and finish the entire level in 5 minutes.  You can  have as many skulls as you like since you won't really run into any resistance.  See here for a real example from my game history.  Winter Contingency also has a path that allows you to sprint through and finish the entire level in under 15 minutes.  No glitch required here, but takes a little longer because of the unskippable cutscenes.  See game history example here.  For most of the challenges, I prefer the Nightfall run because it's faster.  Sometimes the Winter Contingency run is more appropriate though, especially if you have to not die for the challenge.  On occasion, the Forklift Glitch takes more than one try and you can get killed trying.

• Forklift Glitch: This is one of the coolest things we've seen in Reach so far.  Shows how to sprint through Nightfall and exploit the Forklift Glitch to avoid almost all the enemies on the map.
• Winter Sprint: Shows the path to sprint through on Winter Contingency with very little risk of dying.  At the end, I recommend a green gun combo on the Sword elite, it's a little safer and more reliable.  With *some* skull combos, it may take two green gun blasts, or a green gun + a sticky grenade to take out his shields.
• Flawless Finish Glitch: Shows the save point at the end of Winter Contingency that allows you to finish it over and over again flawlessly with no effort.  Is not a Bungie bannable offense.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

I'm hauling my Xbox all the way up to Auburn for this, so you fools better be on.

Reach Challenges: Grunts

As more and more people catch Challenge Fever, it seems that some guidance might be in order.  Despite my previous recommendation of the Halo Reach Daily blog, it appears that many folks are still approaching challenges the "hard way."  Many of the challenges have much easier approaches, so I'll post some of the more common strategies here of the next few days.

First up: Grunts.  For "Firefight Matchmaking" challenges like A Satisfied Thirst (kill xxx Grunts), Killagruntjaro! (Grunt multi-kills), Covenant-cide (kill xx enemies), etc, the fastest way to knock these out is in Gruntpocalypse.  There are 120 Grunts per game, each game should take about 10 minutes to finish.

In the playlists, this is under Cooperative -> Score Attack.  Yes, even though this doesn't have "Firefight" in the title and it's only single player, it DOES count as "Firefight Matchmaking."  Once you're in the voting menu, you get to choose whatever map that you want.  Since it's single player, your vote will always win.  Moreover, this is the one playlist where you can keep choosing "None of the Above" until you get the map you want or you have vetoed all the maps and have reached the end.  Your voting options are always "Score Attack", "Gruntpocalypse", or "Mythic Attack"/"Sniper Attack".  Choose Gruntpocalypse.  Gruntpocalypse is all grunts, all the time.  All the loadouts have DMR and Magnum as your weapons, and the ammo lockers are infinite, so you can go back and refill as many times as you like.  My preference is to choose Armor Lock because I find that blind sticks are my greatest threat, but others like Bubble Shield to allow you to reload under fire.

My two favorite maps are Courtyard and Beachhead for Gruntpocalypse, some other folks like Corvette and Waterfront.

• Courtyard: You can basically hang around the main spawn room.  Grab ammo on your way out.  Enemies spawn in both the left and the right courtyards, but you can start on the left side since Grunt squads hobbling up the right usually give you plenty of warning.  When you start taking heavy fire, you can just pop back into the spawn room for ammo where the doors will close safely behind you.
• Beachhead: From initial spawn, head to the ammo locker right in front of you and then camp at the top of the stairs just past the ammo locker.  You can see just about the entire map from there, and the Grunts will happily funnel up the central walkway for easy multi-kills.  On occasion, one or two will wander up and flank from the left side by where you initially spawned, but you can prevent that if you're quick about picking them off on the left side.  There's a small ledge at the top of the stairs (where the tree is) where you have a shot on pretty much the entire left side.
• Corvette: Top of the platforms is where to play here.  Not my preference though since it's a pretty exposed run to and from the ammo lockers.
• Waterfront: The recommendation is to head out to the cliff across the open field where you have a safe view of the entire map.  There are a couple dangerous Grunt spawn spots right around that cliff (including one right behind you), but you can anticipate that with the "Reinforcements" announcement and lob an Overkill grenade as soon as they spawn.  The big issue is the long walk to/from the ammo locker.  Not a problem on Sniperfight with infinite ammo, but it is an issue on Gruntpocalypse.

Beachhead is so easy that I've started finding new ways to entertain myself.  Would you like to join my pursuit of the "perfect game"?   I recently finished my personal challenge of a perfect 120 headshots, 120 DMR kills and >10k points, but fell slightly short of my goal of 35 multi-kills (34) in one game.

Flaming Avatar

Most folks have said that they will be getting the Noble Map Pack in about 2 weeks.  Gamestop is offering a promotion of a flaming helmet for your Xbox Live avatar if you pre-order through them.  Note that this is for your avatar only, not your in-game Spartan model within Halo:Reach.  Thanks to OD for the tip.

Be a Bungie Beta Tester

Since Bungie's acquisition by Activision earlier this year, we can assume that they are done with the Halo franchise and that their next game will be multi-platform.  They've always made great games, so if you'd like to Beta test the next-gen games, they're offering a beta-test signup.

http://www.bungie.net/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=Beta_Signup

Firefight Galore

Today's challenges are all in Firefight.  Most of them will be a lot easier if coordinated with friends.  If you'd like some co-op fun, I'll be on-line hosting FF games a little before 10pm and then again at 11:30pm.  It will actually help you when I drop at 10:30pm because I can go into your game to fill a spot and keep a random out, so that you get your gametype of choice without an extra body competing for kills/assists.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

Have you made Lt. Colonel yet?

Player Spotlight: CoolerSopranos2

CoolerSopranos2 is one of our original clan members from the days of Halo 1 LAN parties.  Per popular request, we sat down for a quick interview to find out more about him.

Q1: What's your name in real life?
A1: Kevin Copeland

Q2: What is your day job?
A2: I work at Intel Mask Operations where we deliver world class masks and tape out support enabling Intel to be One Generation Ahead on technology with industry leading time-to-market.  I sit in a cube supporting factory operations trying to never set foot within the factory.

Q3: What's an interesting thing about you?
A3: CoolerSopranos was a Xbox suggested name after multiple attempts to create a nametag based on Soprano's characters failed.  Wanting to get in and play Halo:CE as quick as possible, I decided to use the suggested name figuring I could always change it later.  Fail!  The name stuck and after something happened to the original account and it could not be renewed, I signed up CoolerSopranos2.

Q4: How did you get into Halo and/or video games?
A4: I bought the original Xbox the day it was released specifically to play Halo:CE.  Playing Co-op campaign with Omniscient Death until the early morning proved the game was addicting.  However, it was the underground online play that was really groundbreaking for consoles and created the Halo experience.

Q5: What's your favorite thing about playing Halo?
A5: Sneaking up on unsuspecting players and assassinating them.

Q6: What's your biggest dislike about playing Halo?
A6:

1. Sneaking up on unsuspecting players, missing the assassination attempt and getting tea bagged for my effort.
2. Score Whores!
3. The Arbiter

Q7: How do you manage video game time with wife time?
A7: With only one TV in the house, it's tricky as I won't play until the wife goes to bed.

Q8: How has Reach brought you back into the Halo world?
A8: Daily and Weekly Challenges are a surprisingly effective motivational tool.

Many thanks to CoolerSopranos2 for his time and welcome back to active duty!

Iron With Friends

Today's challenges are all really easy, with only Iron With Friends requiring some coordination.  Should only take 10-15 minutes to sprint through Winter Contingency, but does require co-op mode.  As usual, I'll be available at 10pm PT to bring parties into Campaign together to knock this out.  If there's more than 4 people on, join my party and I'll help folks coordinate before breaking into smaller teams.  Because today's challenge is shorter, if you are on-line by 10pm, I'll wait until 10:10pm to launch games if people are busy in matchmaking.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

It's good to play with others.

Daily Challenges

Have you caught Challenge fever yet?  Halo Reach's new daily and weekly challenge system is wildly addictive and is easily the fastest the way to level up to new armory items.  There are typically over 6,000 cR points available in daily challenges and several more thousand in the weekly challenge.  We recommend Halo Reach Daily, a blog dedicated to outlining the best way to tackle the daily challenges each day.  Thanks to OD for the link.

Halo Reach Ranks v2

I earned my Lt. Colonel stripes earlier today and finished up all the achievements in Halo Reach.  Thanks to the community completing 17 million daily challenges, Bungie has lifted the rank cap exposing everything else that is available.

Here are the new ranks above Lt. Colonel and the credits required to reach each one:

• Commander Grade 0 (600000 cR)
• Commander Grade 1 (650000 cR)
• Commander Grade 2 (700000 cR)
• Commander Grade 3 (750000 cR)
• Colonel Grade 0 (850000 cR)
• Colonel Grade 1 (960000 cR)
• Colonel Grade 2 (1070000 cR)
• Colonel Grade 3 (1180000 cR)
• Brigadier Grade 0 (1400000 cR)
• Brigadier Grade 1 (1520000 cR)
• Brigadier Grade 2 (1640000 cR)
• Brigadier Grade 3 (1760000 cR)
• General Grade 0 (2000000 cR)
• General Grade 1 (2200000 cR)
• General Grade 2 (2350000 cR)
• General Grade 3 (2500000 cR)
• General Grade 4 (2650000 cR)

There are actual 4 "special" ranks above General Grade 4 that Bungie hasn't revealed yet.  They're not capped, they're just secret until people reach them on their own.  Percentage-wise, the biggest major promotion is still from Warrant Officer to Captain, requiring 165,000 cR in total, or 367%. In terms of pure credits, the biggest jump is now from Brigadier to General, requiring 600,000 cR.

Noble Map Pack Trailer

Self explanatory.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

Sorry for the late notice and bailing last week, have spent the last week handling a family emergency.  bungie.net stalkers will note that I haven't logged a single game in over a week and haven't been able to show off my Major Grade 3 stars to anyone.  I'm back in town now, exhausted, running on empty, still a single dad with two kids, but I'll be damned if I'm going to miss another clan night.  I have a game plan to have both monsters fed and in bed in time for clan night.  I'll see you fools on.