Clan Meeting

As seen on failblog:

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Players choice.

Last week before Halo CEA. I'll let those on first choose what we play. It's Halo Reach by default, but I'm kind of hankering for some Rainbow Six Vegas lately.

Two weeks left

Thanks to OD for the tip.

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Halo Anniversary - Exclusive Campaign Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

iPhone Games

No clan night this week because I'm traveling again.  Sorry I didn't send out a notice last week, was also traveling.  Note that Halo CE: Anniversary will launch in two weeks on clan night, and that we'll be switching to that as the official clan game.  Halo Reach has a beta playlist open in anticipation of Halo CEA if you'd like to try out some of the game mechanics.  My impression is that the pistol does not feel the same.

As an aside, the clan now has critical mobile mass on iPhone.  I think there's an opportunity to expand our gaming platforms.  Here's some games that might be fun to play as a clan on iPhone.  They're all turn-based multi-player, so we can play at our own pace and not be tied to anybody's schedule.  If you're interested, leave a comment on this post and we'll see if we can hit critical mass.  If you have other suggestions, I'm open to those as well.

Uniwar - Cost: $0.99.  UniWar™ is the online multiplayer turn-based strategy game for the iPhone. Up to 8 players take turns building their army and fighting against each other using the strengths of their units while taking advantage of the terrain. It is like chess or checkers but with a lot more possibilities and different boards.  Join several games and move up the ranks to become the top player!  Play anyone, anywhere at anytime!

This game is a classic! It is a blend between Advance Wars and StarCraft. Also in the same genre as Lux DLX on the iPhone but with a real online multiplayer mode added. Whether you are looking for an RTS or RPG, UniWar will satisfy your needs.

Carcassonne - Cost: $9.99.  Play the original award winning board game Carcassonne with friends, family, or other board game enthusiasts - online or offline.

Build a medieval landscape, tile by tile, claim landmarks with your followers and score points. As a winner of the prestigious "Spiel des Jahres" award in 2001, the game allows for a plethora of play styles and strategies. If you like social gaming or board games you will love Carcassonne! Supports up to 5 people.

Settlers of Catan - Cost $4.99.  "Catan", the legendary strategy game on iPhone and iPod touch provides gaming fun any time, anywhere. True to the original game, you can compete with up to four players for the most settlements, the longest roads and the largest army. You can trade with each other and claim the precious land with all its resources.

If there are no other players available, various Catanians, each with their own individual characteristics, will prove themselves worthy competitors: the pirate Jean, who knows no compromise, Vincent the merchant, who never allows himself to be cheated, Sean the knight, who takes what is rightfully his...

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

A multiplayer beta playlist showed up a couple weeks ago featuring "zero bloom" weapons.  It has now become clear that this is in support of Halo CE: Anniversary releasing next week.  Those who played 10 years ago will remember that you could fire away as fast as you wanted with no decrease in accuracy.  Halo CE: Anniversary will use the Halo Reach multiplayer system and engine, but retain the old maps and game engine.  As such, weapons will be zero bloom, so the new playlist is ostensibly to exercise that system.  If it's still active, we'll try jumping in there tonight.

Achievement Unlocked Sounder

With the newly released iOS5, you can now specific custom sounders for incoming text messages on iPhones.  This coincides nicely with Microsoft (via Major Nelson) making the "Achievement  Unlocked" blip sounder publicly available.  It's very satisfying.  :)  Download here.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

Clan night is back on this week, so the Mean Monkeys should probably reschedule their anniversary dinner.  In other news, Halo CE (aka, Halo 1) Remastered has been voted as our next clan game.  Should be available in November.

No clan night tonight

I'm traveling in Michigan without an Xbox. Next week.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

As long as the daily challenges exist, I think there will be people to play.

Clan discussion

Since comments on the blog aren't as socially enabled as Facebook:

OD wrt Next Clan Game: "Anyone seen what the coop campaign options will be like? Original Gangsta Halo only allowed splitscreen coop w 2 players. Hopefully this one supports up to 4. At least there seems to be a firefight option."

No clan night this week

Scheduling conflict, so no official clan night this week.  In other news, Turtle Beach is having a 20% sale on all of their headphones.  OD, Poon and myself all use Turtle Beach headphones and have had good results.  Clan recommends.

Yoink!

You know it's a good clan night when your team gets three Yoinks in one Slayer game.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

Halo is apparently very popular, with a packed clan night last week.  A few of us were also pulled into H1/H2 LAN parties over the weekend.  Let's keep the momentum up.  :)

The Next Clan Game

OK, so Duke Nukem was a huge bust, I will admit when I've led us astray.  Let's fix it and get back to our clan roots.  Here are some of the games coming out this Fall, which one excites you the most?

Gears of War 3: [September 20] Gears of War 3 is the conclusion to the Gears of War saga.

Gears of War 3 is a third-person action shooter that plunges you into a harrowing tale of hope, survival, and brotherhood. The third and final installment in the Gears of War series features a four-player cooperative campaign; new playable characters; and hideous, mutating enemies.

Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 3: [November 8] Picking up immediately after its 2009 predecessor, Modern Warfare 3 will tell the story of US Delta Force operatives and British SAS forces teaming up against the Russian ultranationalists who have made the critical mistake of invading their home turf. Indeed, battles will be waged in both New York and London--among other locales--as you seek to deal with the Russian threat using a little tactic called "any gun you can get your hands on."  Will have campaign, survival mode and multiplayer. 

Halo - Combat Evolved Anniversary: [November 15] Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is a spectacularly remastered version of the original "Halo" campaign, created in celebration of the 10th anniversary of one of the most beloved franchises in gaming history. With a bounty of new features including cooperative play over Xbox LIVE, a bundle of some of the most beloved multiplayer maps in "Halo" history reimagined for Xbox LIVE, new challenges and a new story to uncover, Halo: Anniversary is a must-have experience.

 

I've posted a new poll to go out and vote.  I'll leave it open for a while, unless there's an overwhelming vote for Gears in the next two weeks. If I've missed a game that you'd to see listed for consideration, please let me know.

 

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

Has been pretty fun messing around in Halo lately. Again tonight.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

Sorry for the late notice, crazy day.  I'm feeling like some campaign if we have 4 or less.  I'll figure out what to play if we have more.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

Dust off that game jacket.  Halo's making an appearance!

Clan poll reset

Sorry no post about clan night this week. I'm on vacation, and blogging wasn't exactly top of mind.  Poll has been reset for next week, I expect to be back on-line.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

Brainy fun.  Looks like we'll have just enough to maybe sprint through some campaign.  I promise to only molotov saferooms when I'm the first one in.

Remember to vote.

If you want to play, please voice your opinion.  Only one vote so far this week, which isn't enough for a clan night.  I'll be out next week on vacation, so it could be a two week break.

Clan night poll reset

Go and vote!  Zombies campaign has mucho fun this week.  Because what's funnier than a molotov in the safe room?  lolz

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

Thanks for voting kids.  It's another zombie night.  Brainy.

Clan vote

Only 4 people have voted in the clan game poll on the blog so far, with no game receiving more than 2 votes.  I probably won't host a clan night unless there's a game with at least 4 votes, so that we have critical mass.  If you'd like to game this week, please go and vote.

Clan game poll reset

I'm traveling this week so there won't be a formal game night unless somebody volunteers to host.  OD has requested Gears of War 2, if anybody else has that game.  I've reset the poll for next week's game.  Vote to see what we play on August 2.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

Yummy and delicious brains!  Thanks for voting, everyone!

Vote for Next Week's Game

I've gone through the xbox.com profiles of the 10 most active clan players and collated the games that people have played.  I've posted a poll on the blog with games that at least 4 people have, numbers in parentheses show just how many people appear to have that game today.  Please vote, you can pick more than one choice.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

OK, we're back in business.  Will try to establish a more regular cadence for clan nights again.  Watch for a poll on the blog later this week to pick the weekly game that we play.  Please only vote if you actually plan to show up to play that game.  I'll pull the game list from the games that are showing up in people's Xbox Live accounts, feel free to nominate others.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Duke Nukem Forever.

We'll give it another go with some on-line versus action to see if we can get some fun value out of it.  Please log on and give the game one more shot!

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Duke Nukem Forever.

It's launch day, freaks.  Plan ahead, get your copy early, install it to hard drive, and plan to be ready to rock at 8pm sharp.  I'll have an Xbox Live chat party running so that we can handle technical problems more easily.  If you join and can't hear anybody, look for the chat party.  Porter, I'm talking to you.

Clan night tonight. 8:30pm PT. Halo Reach.

It's a Halo week.  I've got a crazy early flight tomorrow morning, so will log on early to get off early.  OD should be on early with me too.  Get your Halo time while you can, it will probably get dropped once Duke launches.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

I miss the Spitter.  Zombies tonight.  Duke Nukem coming soon, so get your zombie fix while you can.

Next Game: Duke Nukem Forever - Pre-Order Today!

In a somewhat surprisingly result, the clan has voted unanimously to play Duke Nukem Forever as our next clan game.  DNF launches on Tuesday, June 14, conveniently on clan night in 2 weeks.  If you pre-order it from select retailers, you will get early access to the game THIS Friday via the Early Access Club.  GameStop, as usual, will be offering pre-orders with the early access bonus.

Plan for it.  Duke is coming.

Holy Feces

Have you voted in the poll yet?

Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever has been released to manufacturing and is credibly on its way to market.  It launches on June 14 and could be a very fun next game for the clan to play.  There was little to no interest in my suggestions for non-FPS games, so this seems like a perfect fit.  FPS, but clearly a fun and not too serious game, with lots of nostalgia value.  There's even Holsom twins for CoolerSopranos2.  I've put a new poll on the blog.  It will be open for a week, vote if you want to play this next, expect that we'll switch over on day 1 (June 14) if there is critical mass.

Check out the website for more information.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

OK, I'm back in town and I miss my Xbox.  I'll be on tonight.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

It's been fun playing L4D1 for a couple weeks in a row, but people mentioned they missed the spitter.  So L4D2 it is this week.  I'm still traveling, so will be out.  Coordinate amongst yourselves.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

I'm actually out of the country for the next two weeks, but we had good attendance for the last Halo night.  And Porter wants to play.  I trust you kids can self-organize.  And I think Pewn has the Jenga gametype and maps.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 1.

It'd be really nice to actually get some versus in this week.  If we don't get at least six people to show up tonight, I'll consider dropping L4D from the rotation because it's just not drawing the crowds required.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

It's a Halo week.  Maybe we can log some wins in Action Sack or Grifball...

Next Game? Clan Poll

There's no new Halo or Left 4 Dead on the horizon.  Clan night attendance is down.  What do people want to play next?  I don't know of anything really ground breaking on the horizon.  Leave a comment here about a game you would like to play next.  Here are some ideas:

• Burnout Paradise (January 2008, 9.0/10.0, $19.99 used): Driving arcade game focused more on crashes and stunts than on pure racing.  Support for up to 8 player co-op/races.  Could be a good diversion.
• Forza Motorsport 3 (October 2009, 9.5/10.0, $22.99 used): The standard in simulation driving games, this one was apparently designed to be more accessible.  All the best cars, support for up to 8 player co-op/races.
• Battlefield 1943 (July 2009, 8.0/10.0, $15 download): A multi-player version of the World War II series, this Xbox Live Arcade download supports up to 24 players.  Not sure if there's really a co-op mode, and not sure how many people are still playing on-line.

I'm open to other ideas.  Main requirements: Support for at least 8 people, easily accessible (i.e., not Call of Duty), high fun factor.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead ONE.

Pounce me.  Tongue me.  Barf on me.  Get me some brains in the L4D original game.  9pm PT.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

I'm traveling, but BeerMonkeee has promised that he will log on.

No clan night this week.

Everyone's out.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead ONE.

By request of MrsM, we'll be playing L4D classic tonight.  Put in your original game disc, not #2.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

Yay!!!  I get to play Xbox tonight!!!  I make absolutely no promises that I have any memory of how to play Halo though.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

Zombie zombie zombie.  The last couple of zombie nights, the clan has very effectively self organized, so I trust that you all can do it again.  I am sadly in Houston this week and won't be able to participate.  But that should leave a free spot for somebody else to sneak in.

John Out Sick Today

I've come down with some kind of stomach bug and feel terrible.  I'm going to pass on clan night tonight to try and rest up.  The rest of you fools should still log on though.  You need the practice.  :)

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

Our goal this week is to suck less.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

Sorry for the late update.  I'm hungry for some gray matter.

Halo Reach: Defiant Map Pack

Bungie has announced some new DLC coming out next month:



It costs 800 MSFT points, or about $10.  There's a new poll on the blog to see how many people plan to purchase this. If we have both more than 4 votes for and more than 75% interest in total, I'll make it a clan mandate and put the DLC playlists into the clan night mix.  If not, then we'll just play the DLC opportunistically.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo Reach.

I'll be on at 9pm tonight.  Please log in for some fraggin.  OD was very lonely last week when he was playing with himself.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

BRAINS.  9pm PT.  First come, first eaten.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

I'm actually in Houston this week and can't get on.  But there's typically plenty of people on for Halo weeks, I expect you kids can party up on your own and figure it out.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

It's braaaaaaaiiiiinnnnssss this week.  I'm traveling, so moving the time back to 9pm so I can get home.  Remember to join both the XBL party and the game lobby.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

I've been all consumed with Fable III since Christmas.  There's apparently a bunch of new Halo playlists out.  Let's reconvene now that everyone's back from the holidays and maybe even knock out a couple challenges along the way.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

By popular vote, we'll start playing zombies every other week now, intermixed with Halo Reach.  Today is my wife's birthday, so I'll be out, but OmniscientDeath will be hosting games starting at 8pm.  Be sure he's in your friends list.  You should be able to join both the XBL Chat Party as well as the Left 4 Dead 2 game lobby on the fly, even if they're already in game, as long as there's less than 8 players.  Remember that it's first come, first served.

Clan Night Postmortem

Here are some highlights from last night.  Since we had a bunch of objective games, I didn't filter them out this week.  Also worth noting, even though it's not highlighted in the table, is Mean Mrs Monkey's career best game with 8 kills and +4 spread on Anchor 9 DMRs.  Most people seemed to really enjoy zombies last week, and there is talk of playing Left 4 Dead more than just once a month.  I've put a new poll up on the blog, go and vote to voice your opinion if you'd like to play L4D more or less.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

As much fun as zombies was last week, we are back to our regularly scheduled programming this week.  I'm not sure if I still remember how to play Halo anymore though.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Left 4 Dead 2.

Hope everyone had a spoiled Christmas and got lots of fun toys.  I sure did.  =D  Zombies this week as it seems like everyone is in town.  Due to popular demand, I'll try to host one zombie clan night a month, targeting the last Tuesday of each month.  Remember that we use an XBL Chat Party with zombies so that we can talk to each other.  If you've forgotten, review some of the old clan posts:

• Parties, Parties, Parties
• L4D2 Weapons and Items
• First Come, First Served
• Clan Night Waiting List
• L4D Etiquette
• L4D n00b Q&A
• L4D Party Management

Weekly Challenge: This Is How We Do It

This week, Bungie is offering 10,000 cR for finishing 9 Campaign levels on Heroic.  If you haven't finished the Campaign yet, 9 levels is exactly how many it takes to play the whole game through, so this week would be a good time to do so.  If you've been paying attention to the blog, you'll already know the easiest way to get this done.  I finished in about 30 minutes.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

Still with a few absences and BeerMonkeee wants his confetti, so Halo again this week.

Jerk Rating

Anybody who has spent any time within Halo Reach is intimately with Assassinations, sweet-ass animations that you can trigger if you are able to get behind somebody and hit the kill button.  They are fun as hell when you are delivering them, and extra embarrassing when you are the recipient.  The animation is a reward and celebration of sorts because assassinations can be pretty hard to come by.  A key component of the assassination is that both players are vulnerable to fire during the animation, which means either killer or killee may be killed before the animation completes, effectively stealing the kill.  If your teammate is assassinating somebody and you kill their victim before they finish, it is called a Yoink and Bungie awards a special medal for that.  As funny as it is sometimes, it's totally a dick move.  If you save your teammate by killing an opponent who is in the midst of assassinating them, it is called a Showstopper and Bungie awards a special medal for that as well.  Showstoppers are hard to get and awarded for exceptional teamwork on the battlefield.

Given these two stats, I have developed a "Jerk Rating" to see who Yoinks and Showstoppers the most in our clan:

As you can see from the table, FragginURdoodz is clearly the biggest Jerk in the clan with a 6.9 Jerk Rating, highest Yoinks Per Game ratio, and only 1 career Showstopper to balance it out.  OmniscientDeath and darknorpo come in a close second.  OD claiming the clan high of 21 Yoinks and norpo logging a surprising 0 Showstoppers.  MEAN MR MONKEY is amongst the nicest team players when it comes to Jerk Rating.

Headsets

Please make sure that you have a working and reliable headset for playing clan games.  The expectation is that you can reliably hear people talking, people can reliably hear you talking, you don't consistently create an echo and that you don't generate excessive noise on the line (like static or whistling).  Having a working headset is NOT OPTIONAL for clan night and clan games.  It is absolutely imperative that we can talk to you, or at a minimum, get confirmation that you can hear us.  If your headset breaks on clan night and you can't get it replaced in time, it's ok to send me an Xbox Live text message to reply to questions, but that's really tedious long term.

I fully understand that the standard Xbox headset sucks and breaks often, but they are cheap to replace, so please get it fixed.  PlayItNow has replacement headsets for less than $8 including shipping via Amazon.  I do NOT recommend the wireless headset because they are plagued with really annoying noise/whistling problems that affect everybody else more than you.  The Turtle Beach headphones with integrated mics do a decent job, but they do exhibit wonky behavior as their batteries start to die.  The Plantronics Halo 2 special edition is still the best and most reliable headset I've ever used, but requires an adapter for the Xbox 360 controller.  Mine is still working well today, something like six years later.  The new Plantronics Gamecom X30 is a piece of garbage, and I would NOT recommend buying it.

If you think you have a problem with your headset, try recording a voice message and playing it back to yourself.  Other people generally have a better idea than you do if you have a problem.  It's often very obvious which person in the party is causing the problems because their speaker icon lights up with the noise, or they're the only ones not talking.

Please Be a Team Player

Occasionally, I will ask the clan to work together and leverage our advantage in numbers to do stuff.  This is typically centered around achievements, but may also be for in-game challenges or other entertaining tasks.  I try to make it as fair as possible so that people don't get bored and so that everybody who wants to get the achievement or challenge has the opportunity to do so.  I ask you to please be patient, participate, and be a team player, or excuse yourself from the party until we are done.  Most of us learned in Kindergarten that sometimes we have to play a game that somebody else chooses, even if it's not our first choice.  Please remember that lesson.

• Achievements: There are a handful of achievements in each game that are a lot easier if you have friends to help you boost for them.  When those opportunities present themselves, I will generally coordinate the clan to help.  If you know we are boosting for achievements, please help, or at a minimum, don't hinder the progress.  As an example, an achievement will often require a special kind of kill, so we'll have dummies line up in a configuration to make that a lot easier and have other folks setup to get the easy kill.  Unless it's your turn to get the achievement, don't kill the dummies.  Definitely don't kill the people trying to get the achievement.  If we have enough people, you don't always have to be a dummy if you'd rather do something else, but don't ruin it for others.
• Wins for the Clan: Based on the blog poll, when we have 5-6 folks on-line, people would prefer to be split up into separate 4v4 teams rather than play on the same team in Invasion.  If there is a daily challenge requiring a certain number of wins, I will ask those on the other team (1-2 players) to sandbag so that the 4-player clan team can log a win.  Because of the skill disparity within the clan, we will typically be matched against random players at a higher skill level than many of the folks playing on clan night, so this is the most efficient way to log wins for the most people.  It can be boring to sandbag, and you don't want to get booted for obvious griefing or betrayals, so the standard rule is to allow assassinations only when you're on the other team.  This basically makes it a 4v3 or 4v2 game so that the clan team has the best chance of winning, and also gives the sandbagging players something incredibly entertaining to do while they wait.  I think we can all agree that it's hilarious to assassinate your friends and then laugh in party chat while you abuse their body.  It REALLY sucks if the sandbaggers don't play nice.  If AT ANY POINT the 4-player clan team is losing, or winning by less than 10 kills, I will take exception to any sandbaggers that aren't playing nice.  That includes:
• Getting kills with guns or grenades
• Punching people in the face
• Working on "assists" (unless there's a challenge, in which case I may allow this on a case-by-case basis)

If you're worried about your K/D ratio, you can go hide in a corner.  Getting kills with guns or grenades means you're explicitly not following the clan rules.  Punching people in the face is fine if you're following somebody and they turn around at the last second, but don't punch them again in the face for the kill.  The proper thing to do is to run away if you can't get behind them -- if you die, you're helping the clan. Assassinations are hard to get.  THAT'S THE POINT.  When available, I will try to pick games like Slayer Pro where there's no radar to help folks get their assassinations.

Boosting and sandbagging are things we do for the greater good.  If we are on different teams, it just makes sense to help the 4 people log a win, at the cost of 1 or 2 people logging a loss.  Matchmaking does a decent job at shuffling folks around so you're not always the odd man out.  If it's problematic, I will take us into different playlists so people aren't stuck.

As I said above, you always have the option to exclude yourself from the party if you think boosting or sandbagging is lame.  Moving forward, if I have to continually remind somebody to play nicely, I will go ahead and boot/exclude you from the party myself so that you can play a few games on your own.  I want this to be a fun environment for everyone.

Parties, Parties, Parties

With the introduction of Halo Reach, the term "party" has gotten a little confusing on Xbox Live.  I know it can be a little tricky to figure out sometimes, but please bear with us as we work around the technology because it IS useful.  There are two kinds of parties:

1. Xbox Live "chat" party: This is via the Xbox Live interface itself, is title-agnostic, is persistent irrespective of what the game is doing, and people can join from separate games or apps within Xbox Live.  The party system here supports up to 8 people at one time and is for chatting only.  Because it is a chat feature, the chatting is mutually-exclusive with game chat, you can only be chatting in one system or the other.  The implication is that if you are in an XBL chat party, you can't chat with anybody not in the party, even if they're on your team.  In Halo, you'll see the "speaker" icon next to somebody's name turn into a "chat bubble" icon if they're in a separate Xbox Live "chat" party.  You'll see us use this kind of party when we have 8 people or less, and are playing in game types on separate teams.  It's entertaining to be able to chat with everyone in the clan even though we're on separate teams (like in zombies, or 4v4 Halo games).
2. Halo Reach party: This is a mechanic within the Halo game, is title-specific, only applies within Halo Reach, and is how we stay together through matchmaking and other playlists.  The party system here supports up to 16 people at one time, supports chatting as well as keeping friends together from game to game.  In the matchmaking lobby, everybody (up to all 16 people) can chat together.  Once a game starts however, chat is ONLY enabled for the people on your team in that specific game.  This means that if we get split into separate teams, you will not be able to chat with folks on the other team.  That makes it less fun because you miss out on the smack talk, but also makes it much harder to coordinate things like achievement boosting.

People seem to "get" the  Halo Reach party system pretty well and seem to understand how to use the active roster to queue up if you join late.  Most of the confusion stems from around starting and stopping XBL chat parties.  I'll often start these and leave these running, but when we have more than 8 people (like last night), I have to drop out of it so that we can hear our 9th person.  The video below does a good job of showing how to start and join XBL chat parties.  Note that at 1:44 it shows how you can join a chat party without an invite.  This is important because it takes the system several seconds to send each invite and sometimes the invites get lost in the ether.  As a result, I'll send invites to everyone but you may be left by yourself as the only person not in chat if you're actually waiting for the invite to arrive.  Instead, you can join the party proactively and instantly as soon as you see my "speaker" icon change into the "chat bubble."  The video also show you how to start XBL chat parties.  For those of you higher-ranked Halo Reach veterans, you can expect me to promote you to party leader if I need to step away, so you should know how to start and manage chat parties, and when to use them or quit out of them.

As an aside, the active roster is the preferred way for you to join the Halo Reach game party if you're the odd one out.  We occasionally have folks who are having internet problems and need to restart or whatever.  When possible, I will try to take the clan into a custom game where we can fool around while we wait.  The big advantage of this is that you can join a custom game on the fly even if we've already started.  You don't need an invite, just find my name in either the Halo Reach menu or the Xbox Live menu and choose "Join Party" (Halo Reach) or "Join Game" (XBL).

Clan Night Postmortem

Halo Charts has a new Game Aggregator tool that produces some pretty interesting data.  Thought I would share some highlights from clan night last night.  Below is some key stats from our Slayer games (objective games excluded).  Numbers will obviously be tilted slightly for people who were helping the clan while on the other team...

Clan night tonight. 8:30pm PT. Halo Reach.

Several of our zombie regulars are out this week, so I've decided to postpone our zombie action and stick with Halo this week.  Note that I'm also pushing it back to 8:30pm, which seems closer to when we actually get enough people to play.  Expect to see lots of 4v4 Team Slayer, 4v4 Team Objective, and 8v8 Big Team Battle in this weeks' playlists.

For those interested, 2 of 2 people voted for Left for Dead 2.  So I'll plan to schedule that for next week.  If you <3 zombies and will be out, please let me know a better time to schedule zombies.

Iron With Friends

Today features another "Iron With Friends" challenging you to finish a campaign mission on co-op with the Iron skull turned on.  I just discovered that you can actually do this yourself in split-screen with a guest on the second controller.  If you sprint through Winter Contingency, the guest will just teleport forward as you make progress so you never have to touch the second controller.  The only place you have to move player 2 is after the Falcon drops you off by the blast doors, where you'll have to move player 2 out of fire.  I moved both players to the stairs, and then moved one at a time into the blast door area.  For those who can't figure this out, I'll likely be on at 11pm tonight to work on the multiplayer challenges.

Clan night feedback

Last night was the first night that I started picking playlists based on the poll results.  It was somewhat of a unique clan night because we had four people on split screen at my house.  The split screen prevents us from playing Big Team Battle (limited to 2 local players) and also locks in teams - Reach matchmaking does not appear to break up split screens anymore, so all 4 local players were always on the same team.  This won't really ever be an issue in the future, so we'll get to play BTB and teams will shuffle more when we're in 4v4 playlists.  We did however play much less straight Slayer and Invasion than we do on a normal clan night:

• 4v4 Team Slayer - 7 games (35%) wins pretty evenly split 4 and3
• 4v4 Team Objective - 7 games (35%) wins split 5 and 2
• 6v6 Invasion - 3 games (15%) with 2 out of 3 wins/ties
• 3v5 Living Dead - 2 games (10%)
• 4v4 Team Snipers - 1 game (5%) wins split 0 and 1

Despite knowing that Invasion causes strife, I chose the playlist a couple times so that we could all play on the same team.  In the future, we'll have BTB as an option instead and can avoid Invasion more.  It felt a little monotonous to always have gt, OD, BeerMonkeee and doodz vs everyone else, so was trying to break it up.  Party chat seemed to make games more humorous, and assassinations were the highlights of the night.

The feedback is great, I'm interested if you have more thoughts.  Remember to vote in the poll on the blog, and be ready for zombies next week!

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

The poll has closed and the winning results are (in order):

1. Big Team Battle
2. Team Slayer
3. Team Objective

Custom games were rejected handily, so I'll be happy to not spend anymore time trying to find fun games for n00bz to play.  Since my family is gone, a few of us will be playing split-screen at my house tonight and getting drunk.  Unfortunately for the vote, BTB only supports a max of 2 local players, so we may not be able to play much of that tonight.  I'll bring us into plenty of Team Slayer and Team Objective games though, while avoiding Invasion, which people seem really uncomfortable with.

I've also posted a new poll.  Many people have asked for zombie night to break up the Halo monotony.  I'll try to schedule one zombie night a month to see how that works out.  Please vote in the poll on your preference of L4D1 or L4D2.

HR: UNSC Weapons - Propipe Display

I just updated the entry on the UNSC Grenade Launcher - aka Propipe.  An interesting thread bubbled up to the top of the interwebz today that revealed the display on the Propipe actually tells you how many entities are within the kill radius of the grenade that you recently launched.  This is extremely useful for timing when to release the trigger and kill bad guys.

Challenge Etymology

Reach Daily Challenges (another daily challenge blog) posted the origins to some of the daily challenge names. I think some of these are just his best guess, but an interesting read nevertheless.

DLC: Tempest Overview

The Noble Map Pack dropped yesterday with three brand new maps. I honestly didn't get a chance to play Tempest, but it should be another BIG ASS map designed for Big Team Battle.  From what I hear, it's a lot more vehicle-friendly, so that should hopefully be fun.  See below for an overview of the map.

DLC: Breakpoint Overview

The Noble Map Pack dropped yesterday with three brand new maps. Breakpoint is a BIG ASS outdoor map played in the snow.  There's tons of vehicles around, but the driving lanes are pretty constrained an exposed to fire from all sides.  So far, it seems like the Banshee does well.  Otherwise, Rockets, Laser, n00b Tube, Pro Pipe and 2 Snipers on the map negate the rest of the vehicles pretty quickly.  I guess this will support Invasion in the future, but we didn't see it any voting options yesterday.  See below for an overview of the whole map.

DLC: Anchor 9 Overview

The Noble Map Pack dropped yesterday with three brand new maps.  Anchor 9 is an interesting multi-level hangar with shield doors leading to outerspace.  The space area on Anchor 9 is much more interesting than on Zealot.  Besides the obvious fact that you are actually allowed to stay out there, you can mess with people by going in/out of the shield doors, and the jumps in space there actually lead you somewhere.  Here is an overview of the whole map.  Note the Rockets and Shotgun.

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.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo Reach.

Leave comments here if you have preferred playlists or custom game types.

Office of Not Dying

One of today's daily challenges is to complete ONI on Legendary without dying.  It's worth 4,000 cR and rightfully so, because it's basically impossible to do on your own.  There is a glitch in the game however, where it will credit you for finishing a level without dying if you don't do from the last "Save and Quit" checkpoint.  What this means is that you can play through the entire level on Legendary solo, die as many times as you like, and then Save and Quit at the last checkpoint.  Then Resume your campaign game, don't die, and BAM 4,000 cR.  On ONI Sword Base, the last checkpoint is at the top of the base after you cross the last bridge and before you pick up the Rocket Launcher to go Banshee hunting.

Easy cR Points

Today's daily challenges in Halo Reach are amongst the easiest I've ever seen.  There are 4 Firefight challenges worth a total of 6,000 cR.  All four can be completed in just two Gruntpocalypse games, I finished them in about 20 minutes.  Today's challenges are:

• Be Their Huckleberry (3,500 cR) Kill 200 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking with the pistol.
• Blastin' and Relaxin' (1000cR) Kill 90 enemies in any game mode in Reach.
• The House of Blue Leaves (1000cR)Kill 88 enemies in a single Firefight Matchmaking game on Heroic.
• Above the Law (500cR Awarded) Complete a Round in Firefight Matchmaking without dying.

Daily challenges are like mini achievements with in-game related goals.  They are issued each day at 3am PT and you have 24 hours to complete them.  Completing each one rewards cR points which can be used in the Armory to purchase armor and other aesthetics.