Clan night tonight. X1 CoD Ghosts. 9pm PT.

Extinction!

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. X1 CoD Ghosts.

We'll try to use XBL Party Chat, but it's flaky at best.  Use cellular text as a backup if you're stuck and having connection troubles.

Airsoft AR

I really want this. Is it worth $400?

http://www.evike.com/products/45458/

Destiny Launches 9/9/14

That's a long time from now.

Clan night tonight. X1 CoD Ghosts. 9pm PT.

From Penny Arcade today:

Call of Duty: Ghosts - Getting Started

Welcome to Call of Duty: Ghosts, the latest in the CoD franchise, and our first clan game on Xbox One.  If you don't have an X1 yet, you can still play Ghosts on Xbox 360.  Some retailers are offering a discounted upgrade program for when you do upgrade to an X1.  e.g., buy the game now and play on 360, just pay $10 to upgrade the game to X1 later.  All your multiplayer stats will carry over to the new platform.

There are four main game modes in Ghosts:

1. Campaign - Single player story
2. Multiplayer - On-line against other humans
3. Squads - Single or multiplayer, generally co-op against AI bots
4. Extinction - Multiplayer, co-op against AI bots

If you're brand new to the franchise, or haven't played a CoD game in a while, I strongly recommend you try out Campaign first.  This will introduce you to the mechanics of the game, is easy without being frustrating, and gives you the chance to try out a lot of equipment for free.  There are only two achievements for playing on Veteran, so I recommend you just play on Recruit.  Playing at harder difficulties does not meaningfully affect the story or game play at all, so no point in making your learning experience more frustrating than it needs to be.  While you're cruising through the campaign, make note of guns and sights/scopes that you find especially comfortable and effective.  There's a ton of customization options in this game, so use the campaign to narrow down your choices.

Once you've got the mechanics down, it's a good (and fun) idea to spend a good amount of time in Squads.  This is the core training ground for Ghosts.  The loadouts, maps, and game types are all the same as in Multiplayer.  The only difference is that you're playing against AI bots.  You can adjust the difficulty of the AI, you can play co-operatively with friends, you can play co-operatively with AIs, you can play split-screen with a friend and AIs.

Squad Member Class: When you enter the squad mode, you can create a character which allows you to customize your weapon loadouts, perks, and special abilities.  For your first character, I strongly recommend you pick an Assault class.  Your other options are CQB (Close Quarters), Covert Ops, Heavy Gunner, and Marksman.  Assault is the most general, and easiest to learn.  It comes with unlimited sprint, and fast aiming.

Primary Weapon: The default SA-805 or SC-2010 assault rifles are both fine, there's not a huge need to spend Squad Points (SP) on a fancier gun.  I do strongly recommend adding a Red Dot Sight to make aiming significantly easier and more accurate.  If you have SP to spend, a Foregrip is also recommend to reduce recoil and improve aiming.

Strike Package: This will default to Assault, I recommend changing it to Support.  This is basically the cool ass bonuses you get as you rack up kills.  While the Assault bonuses are "cooler", they reset every time you die, so can be frustrating as a n00b.  The Support package will keep stacking even if you die, so it's easier to build up to the cool bonuses.

Other stuff: You can mess around with Secondary weapons, lethal, tactical, and perks.  Personally, I disable secondary and tactical options to carry more perks.  You can always pick up a secondary gun on the battlefield, and I find the tactical stuff to be less than useful.

Gametype: Jump into Wargames on Recruit.  You get the same XP regardless of the difficulty, might as well start easy and rack it up faster.  Wargames is exclusively against AI bots.  You can choose to play on your own with AI bots on your own team as well, or you can choose to play online with humans on your team.  This will take you through all the different game types in a no-pressure fun environment.  As you gain XP, you'll also earn SP to spend on stuff.

Goal: Rank up each character to level 7 and then start a new character.  This will give you a chance to try out all the basic perks for each character, and give you a chance to try out the different classes each time you start a new squad member.