No clan night tonight

Good news: Fishbone10 just had a baby girl
Bad news: Mean Monkeys had their Xboxes stolen

So no clan night tonight.

Battle Nations - Housing Part 2

I previously posted stats about how much gold different types of housing produce, noting that Shelters are the most cost efficient units.  While this continues to be true, it does require that you check back regularly to collect your gold.  I've done some more modeling, taking into account how many times a day you might actually open the game to collect gold.  Shelters continue to be the best option if you are able to check it 2-3 times an hour (28-48 times a day, not counting sleeping time).  However, you can see that if you're not playing as obsessively as I might be, other housing units might be better suited for your playing style.

Hovels are a good option for those playing 5-15 times per day (every 1-4 hours).  They produce 75 gold every 4 hours, and house 5 workers, at a cost of only 800 Gold.  I have since diversified my housing investment to include both Shelters, Camps and Hovels.  Shelters and Camps continue to be the most flexible housing units, allowing you to tear them down and put them up quickly at almost no cost, while still hitting your max population cap exactly.

No clan night tonight

I'm traveling this week. Attendance has been light lately. If there's something that you'd like to play, leave a comment or send an email.

Battle Nations - Population Part 2

Somebody left a comment asking:

"population limit of 150 reached.
Level up to build more house. "
Do you know what that message means?
Build a house there "Housing"> "Bunkhouse" or "Compound", etc.

Yes, I know what this means.  It means you are lvl 24 and are limited to having 150 people in your Outpost.  You usually get this message when you're trying to build a Housing structure that would put you over that limit.  A Compound houses 10 and a Bunkhouse houses 8, so if you got this message while clicking one of those units, then you probably have between 143 and 150 population in your Outpost, and one of those units would put you over 150.  You can either pick a smaller housing unit like a Shelter (3 pop) or Camp (4 pop), or wait until you level up.  You get 5 extra pop for every level at 18 and higher.

Current clan players: gtdroptop, unsavory, omniscientDeath, beer4porter, fishbone10

Battle Nations - Roads

You'll notice that there is a "Decoration" category in Battle Nations with stuff to make your outpost look pretty.  Some of these are functional.  Roads, specifically:

• Dirt Roads
• Cost: 6,500 gold, 100 stone, 0 seconds
• Return: +1% XP to agriculture, max of +5%
• Cobblestone Road
• Cost: 1 nanopod, 0 seconds
• Return: +2% XP to housing, max of +10%
• Blacktop Road:
• Cost: 28,000 gold, 250 concrete, 100 oil, 0 seconds
• Return: +2% XP to shops, max of +10%

The simple ROI is easy.  What's REALLY cool about roads though, is that they can increase Hauler efficiency at your Resources Depots.  Note here in the picture that I've just placed two Dirt Roads in the path of my Hauler, and efficiency increased so much that I only need 1 Hauler for two resources (Stone and Iron).

Battle Nations - Goods

If you've been paying attention to the blog and read the housing post, then you've torn down all your expensive housing and replaced it with Shelters only.  As a result, you're always rolling in gold and are never gold limited.  In that case, the only reason to build any goods (aside from when the campaign requires it) is to gain XP so that you can level up.  Not all goods are created equal.  Here's a table of all the goods you can produce at the earlier levels of the game and what you can earn, sorted by XP per hour per person:

Note that Quinoa from fields is one of the best values out there.  Technically, Cabbage is king, but you have to harvest it every 5 minutes to make it worthwhile.  You'll also notice that Bakery and Tool Shop items are largely worthless.

Artichokes provide a really nice option to grow because Farms only take 60 gold and 5 seconds to build.  I will typically just put all my extra works into Farms to grow Artichokes, and may even tear down my Bakery and Tool Shop when I am worker-constrained.

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

There was a request for some brain on brain action, and it seems like interest in Halo has waned.  ZOMBIES TONIGHT.

Battle Nations - PvP

Clan critical mass is now at 5 players for Battle Nations.  Why aren't you playing yet?

UnsavorySamurai gave me a tip to check out PvP.  If you choose the PvP icon in your bottom control panel, it will take you to the "Fight Other Players" screen where you can do live head to head battles against random players that match your lvl.  There's three huge advantages to this game mode:

1. It's absolutely free.  None of your casualties need to be healed in the hospital, so there's no concern about losing expensive units.
2. There's huge rewards.  You earn 1 VP (Victory Point) for each loss and 4 VPs for each win.  The game gives you rewards for every 10 VPs until 40 VPs every 24 hours.
3. Fast return time.  It only takes 2 hours to return armies from PvP, so you get them back pretty quickly.

In my first couple days playing PvP, these are the rewards that I've gotten at lvl 24:

• 10 VP: 1,600 gold
• 20 VP : 5,000 gold
• 30 VP: 10,000 XP
• 40 VP: 4 - 6 gears

It's actually better if you start playing PvP at lower levels, because the game will only match you with players of the same lvl.  At lower levels, you can go into battle with armies of just basic Troopers and be able to win with just some smart strategy.  Assuming you win half the time, it only takes 16 quick battles to hit 40 VP each day, and it gives you something interesting to do while you're waiting for resources to pile up or jobs to finish construction.

Battle Nations - Population

If you touch the number on the bottom right of your screen, it will bring up the Demand window.  Demand isn't all that interesting, but this does show your population details:

There are three items to make note of:

• Max: This is the maximum population allowed for your current level.  It will typically move up by 5 or so people per level.
• Housed: This is the number of people that fit in the housing that you have built.  If this number doesn't match the Max number, then you are leaving resources on the table.  As previously discussed, Shelters house 3 and Tents house 4, both only take 5 seconds to build.  Between those two, you should always be able to come up with a cheap and quickly constructed combination of Max Pop.  The game will not allow you even start building a House that would take you over Max Pop, so you should try to hit it exactly.
• Working: This is the number of people you are actually putting to work.  If you have 3 or more people Housed that are not Working, you are leaving Gold and XP on the table.  Build a Farm and put them to work.
• Resource Depots: I put this here because I notice many people put too many population in their Resource Depots.  Your depot will max out at 100%.  The game will allow you to assign more Haulers, but it won't increase your collection rate past 100%, so there's no point.  It's just a waste of Pop.

Battle Nations - Raiding Basics

The #1 benefit I've found of having friends on Battle Nations is being able to mine each other's resources.  Within your own Outpost, you can only mine resources on land that you've expanded into.  However, your friends can mine resources from anywhere in your Outpost, even land that you don't own yet.  Better still, it doesn't cost you anything if you do it right!  Some key items:

• Defenses: Take down (sell) all your defenses!  The campaign will make you build pillboxes, bunkers, cannon towers, etc, but they don't serve any real purpose.  Defenses do not defend against A.I. Raiders, they just make it more expensive for your friends to raid you (not nice).  If you are going after undefended resources, it only takes two basic Troopers to Raid/Occupy.  No point in sending more expensive units and having them tied up on the road.
• Battle Flag:You have to raise your Battle Flag in order to raid or be raided by friends.  Don't worry, only your friends can raid you, so you won't have a ton of strangers in your land all of a sudden.
• Attack: You'll typically only choose this against the A.I., or if you want to mess with your friend.  If you're being nice, don't ever choose Attack for your friends.
• Raid: This allows you "steal" resources from your friend, including from buildings and mines that they've built.  You will receive resources when you win, and it doesn't cost them anything.  No resources are actually taken from your friend's perspective, and any damage you inflict doesn't actually cost them anything.  You can return armies from Raiding much faster and re-raid.  You can typically raid a resource every 4 hours, but you can raid several different resources and stagger it.  As an example, unmined iron will net you 10 iron every 4 hours from raiding.
• Occupy: This allows you to park your army on your friend's resources, and you can regularly go back to collect those resources.  The game will even notify you when they're ready to be collected.  This DOES affect your friend if you Occupy something that they are actively using and can result in a 10x time penalty.  It's best to Occupy resources that they don't have access to yet.  Unmined iron will net you 38 iron every 4 hours from occupying.
• Counter-Attack: After your friend raids your outpost, their armies are available on the boundaries of your territory to counter attack as they withdraw.  If you are trading resources, you should NOT counter attack because it results in actual losses to your friend that they then have to go spend gold and iron to heal.
• Collect: After you raid your friend, be sure to go into your Army management window to collect your guys.  Otherwise they'll get lost in no-man's land forever.

The Battle Nations folks have posted a decent tutorial on how to manage your armies: http://battlenations.com/forums/topic/walkthrough-army-management/

Battle Nations Housing

In Battle Nations, you can build several types of Housing.  This is important to increase your population so that you have people to work in your other construction.  You can also collect taxes from your Housing.  You will be asked to build Shelter, Camp, Hovel and Bunkhouse housing as part of the campaign, but you can tear them all down after the mission and build whatever you like.  Note that the tax rate for each type of housing varies widely:

 

You'll notice that Shelters have the highest gold return per person per hour.  The per person metric is important because you will always be lvl limited for population, i.e., the game will limit how much population you can have based on your current level.  For example, a Hovel generates 75 gold every 4 hours, but a Shelter will generate up to 240 gold every 4 hours.  Even if you only check your Shelter twice an hour, you'll still get 120 gold over 4 hours.  Three Hovels costs 2,400 gold and 3 hours to build, is 15 population and generates 225 gold every 4 hours.  Five Shelters costs 250 gold and 25 seconds to build, is also 15 population and generates 600-1,200 gold over 4 hours.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

Game on.

Battle Nations Basics

There's at least two clan members playing Battle Nations now, so I'm not motivated to start posting about it.  The tutorial missions are decent at getting you started, but there's no instructions, so there's a few things you might miss.  The Battle Nations Wiki is a great resource, but here's a primer on some of the basic controls:

1. User Info: This is where you pick up messages, change your icon and other settings
2. Enemies: Raiders and players in your Outpost show up like this.  Touch the player icon and a dialog box will slide out to the right with the option to Attack.  Touch Attack to engage in battle.
• NOTE: You can always Retreat from a battle for free, doesn't cost you anything.  For example, you can select Attack to see what units are there, and then Retreat if you don't think you can beat them.
3. Missions: Each of these icons represents an active campaign mission that you can go do.  Touch them to see what you need to do next.
4. Active tile: In general, you should always touch the ground tile that you want to use instead of the activity icon above it.  For example, if you want to activate the Field in this screenshot, you should touch where the "4" is, and NOT where the scissor-icon is.  This is true for construction as well as for units in battle.
5. Minimize: Touch here to minimize the controls at the bottom of the screen
6. Construction: Touch here to access all the things you can build
7. Move: Touch here to enter the Move interface where you can move anything you've built, rotate tiles, and delete (sell) items.
• It's always free to move anything, and you can move things even while they're being built
• You can delete trees.  As far as I can tell, they don't serve any purpose and just take up space.
8. Friends: Touch here to see your friends or campaign characters.  This is how you go to visit other lands.
9. PvP: Touch here to engage in player-vs-player matchmaking.  Will put you into battle with random players of the same level as yourself.  I don't really know how this works yet.
10. Armies: Touch here to see all the units you have, garrisons that are in bunkers, or armies in other lands.  Remember that if you Raid or Occupy a friend's Outpost, you'll need to retrieve your armies here when they're done.  It takes some time for them to return.  If you don't claim them here, they'll be unavailable until you do.
11. Nanopods: These cost real money and are extremely valuable, I recommend you don't spend them until the campaign requires them.  There's a campaign mission that requires 75 nanopods.  The easiest free method to get nanopods is by using tapjoy.com.  Access it from your iDevice and follow the directions.
12. Resources: Touch here to cycle through all your resources and how much you have of each.
13. Demand: Touch here to see what your workers want.  Doesn't really come into play all that often, it's more useful to look for the blue arrows when choosing what goods to make.

Battle Nations

I've started playing Battle Nations for iOS and am deeply addicted.  I need friends to play with.  Join me.  It's free.

In Battle Nations, you take command of the elite Imperial Army as you expand and secure the empire. Gather precious resources and build a thriving nation to power your machine of war. Train your troops and battle the attacking rebel forces for dominance of the land.

Battle Nations Features Include:

• Robust Story Driven Campaign: Join the ranks of the Imperial Army and fight your way through over 130 missions
• Strategic turn-based combat: Command dozens of unique troops and vehicles in battle
• Real-time PvP Battles: Queue up and battle other Battle Nations players from around the world for prizes
• PvP Invasions: Fight with Friends and invade their empire or help a friend in need and repel an attack
• Base Construction: Build a network of structures to support and protect your empire
• Resource Management: Find, gather and refine precious resources to fuel your army

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

Challenges available today:

1. Light Fare – Kill 100 enemies in any game mode in Reach – 3000 cR
2. Leadership Element – Kill 30 enemy leaders in the Campaign today – 1750 cR
3. Just a Shower – Complete any Campaign mission on Normal or harder with Thunderstorm on – 4000 cR
4. Double Nickels – Earn 2 Killing Sprees in a multiplayer Matchmaking game – 3000 cR
5. Weekly: Play to Win – Win 77 games in multiplayer Matchmaking this week – 20343 cR

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you all have better things to do tonight than play Xbox.  If you don't and are crying at home alone, send me a text and I may be able to join after 10pm.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

Please don't make MEAN and I have a mandate again.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

If you download the Anniversary
Map Pack, you can play with us using your Halo: Reach disc.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

You know the drill.  Bored?  Provide feedback.

100K cR for Reach in 10 Minutes

OD pointed out a tip at 343 Industries for an easy 100,000 cR in Halo Reach.  We have both verified that it works, but you may need to actually go into Reach and play a game for it fully register.

There is a secret terminal called the 'Threshold' terminal (which is supposedly the name of the gas-giant seen from Halo). To unlock it:

• Unlock all terminals in the campaign
• Write down the symbols which appear at the end of each one (also included below)
• Start up Halo Waypoint
• Press button
• Press the buttons on your controller that correspond to coloured circles that appear on your screen
• Enter the 5 symbols from the end of each terminal

Do this for every terminal and you'll receive:

• 7,000 cR per terminal (37,000 for the last one)
• The terminal to watch in Halo Waypoint
• The secret "Threshold" terminal after entering the ten sets of 5 symbols

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

The usual.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

Game on kids.

Clan night tonight. 9:30pm PT. Halo CEA.

Sorry for the late notice. I'll be on a little bit after the Sugar Bowl.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

It's the holidays and I know nobody's working.  What's your excuse for not playing?

Patriot Xporter USB Flash On Sale NOW

The Kinect generation of Xbox 360s use USB flash for portable memory instead of the proprietary Microsoft memory cards. Good in theory, except that they have a minimum performance requirement that most USB memory sticks don't meet. The Patriot Xporter XT Rage does meet performance requirements and is what I use to move my gamertag and save games between consoles. On sale at Amazon right now, for hella cheap.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

Here's some stats from Waypoint.  Think you're better than me?  Show up and put up.

Gamertag	BPR	Rank	K/D	Challenges	Armory	Commendation
gtdroptop	65	Brigadier	1.21	262	22%	54%
darknorpo	63	Colonel	1.13	174	14%	40%
FishBone10	60	Warrant Officer	1.17	21	11%	16%
Octurian Pewn	57	Colonel	1.10	209	33%	44%
OmniscientDeath	57	Brigadier	1.08	343	12%	57%
BeerMonkeee	55	Captain	1.01	46	11%	24%
Spix	50	Lt. Colonel	0.89	92	41%	41%
CoolerSopranos2	49	Colonel	0.92	255	41%	49%
MEAN MR MONKEY	46	Major	0.92	72	17%	28%
FragginURdoodz	39	Lt. Colonel	0.81	76	14%	40%
TimMAY 1023	38	Sergeant	0.78	3	9%	5%
Beer4Porter	18	Warrant Officer	0.35	4	12%	7%
Mean Mrs Monkey	14	Warrant Officer	0.29	12	10%	7%
Masher24	0	Sergeant	0.86	2	11%	5%
BeefierBen	0	Sergeant	0.00	0	9%	6%
thematthenry	0	Private	0.00	1	8%	0%
UnsavorySamurai	0	Corporal	0.00	0	8%	3%

Can't Say I've Never Considered This

Google engineer builds ultimate LAN party house

"Kenton Varda, a software engineer with Google, moved into his dream home in March but has just now revealed some of the inner workings of the gaming-centered house. On the surface the house appears pretty typical, but when guests are over the space transforms into a haven for gamers. Twelve fold-out PC stations are built into the walls for easy storage and are split between two rooms for team vs. team matches."

http://www.gizmag.com/google-engineer-builds-ultimate-lan-party-house/20833/

Turtle Beach headphones on sale

From OD:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EEMYCO?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Today only.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

I'll be on. You should be too.

Halo BPR

I think this stat has been around for a few months, but the new Halo Waypoint makes it more obvious.  Battle Proficiency Rating (BPR) is a number between 1 and 100 representing a player’s overall skill in Halo: Reach’s Multiplayer mode. This rating tracks your Kills, Wins, Assists, Deaths, and Betrayals across all matches played. You must play at least 10 Invasion, Arena or Competitive games to calculate.   i.e., it's an overall rating of "how good you are."  Interesting to peruse the clan numbers.  :)

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

OmniscientDeath will be your host tonight. Look for his games and party starting at 9pm PT.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo CEA.

Look for darknorpo to be hosting games.

Halo CEA Bandana Skull

There are skulls hidden around Halo CEA.  They unlock achievements, but they also modify the game in different ways.  They don't affect your achievements, so some of them can be very useful.  Arguably the most useful is the Bandana skull which gives you unlimited ammo, making those Legendary runs a lot easier.  Also negates the Famine skull to make it easier to get your 3 skull achievement.  Being the most useful, it happens to be the hardest skull to get (so far).  This video makes it a hell of a lot easier:

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo CEA.

I have family staying with me, so playing earlier gives me a good excuse to step away.  Lots of things to go do in CEA, I'll let the first ones on decide what we do.  Be sure to join the Xbox Live chat party.  Remember you can join that even without an invite, so please join even if you see us in an unjoinable game.  Then you can at least talk with us and find out what the plans are.

Halo CEA Reviewed

So we've had a couple of days to play with Halo Combat Evolved: Anniversary edition.  It does appear that you need to download the classic Halo 1 multi-player maps by using the code included in your game.  Some thoughts:

Campaign: It's sad that this is 2 player only, but it's still a pretty fun campaign with great music.  It's gorgeous compared to Halo 1, but I wouldn't say that it's quite "current gen."  Hitting the Back button is neat to see the original graphics.  The Grunt Funeral skull is a game changer, it basically makes killing Elites trivially easy.  Headshot one grunt in the squad, and everyone goes boom.  Also makes it dangerous to melee grunts now.

Firefight: This is satisfyingly fun to play on the Halo 1 campaign maps, and a nice alternative to campaign.  It basically gives you a way to play snippets of the campaign as 4 player co-op, on XBL, with Challenges available.

Multiplayer: This is launched from the Halo CEA disc, but takes you into the Reach matchmaking engine.  The game types and maps prefaced by "Anniversary" are the classic game types and maps.  Beaver Creek was the most familiar, but Damnation and Prisoner showed up several times as well.  Here are averaged clan stats from clan night, some things never change:

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo CEA.

Early clan night for the new game.  Cooler has the delusion that because he was good at Halo 1 10 years ago, that he'll be good in this game.  Over/under for when he quits in frustration is set at 45 minutes.  Achievements on the table:

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/halo-ce-anniversary/achievements/

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.