12 Months Xbox Live for $34.99

On Amazon.com right now, XBL on sale for $34.99

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

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.

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.

HR: Name Plates

Several people have noticed that players sometimes have little icons next to their gamertags in the game lobbies.  These are Name Plates that can be activated on bungie.net.  Go here to activate yours:

http://www.bungie.net/Account/nameplates.aspx

There 8 different name plate variants with Septagon being the easiest to get and MJOLNIR Mk VI being the hardest and rarest.

Blank.  This is the default.  It has no requirements.

Septagon.  Requires registering with bungie.net.

Assault Rifle.  Requires having played the Halo Reach multiplayer Beta.

Halo PC.  Requires the product key code from the PC version of Halo 1.

Marathon.  Requires having purchased and played Marathon Durandal on Xbox Live Arcade.

Halo 2.  Requires having played Halo 2 on Xbox Live.  using your current gamertag.

Halo 3.  Requires having played Halo 3 on Xbox Live.

ODST.  Requires having played Halo 3: ODST on Xbox Live.

MJOLNIR Mk VI.  Requires having played 4 out of 5: Halo PC, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, or Halo Reach Beta.

L4D2 The Passing DLC

Valve has discounted the price on the L4D2 "The Passing" DLC to 320 points, down from 560 points. This represents a discount from about $7 to $4. Good for this week.

Xbox Live 12-Month Gold Promotion: $29.99

In alignment with Halo Reach launching, Microsoft is running a 12-month Xbox Live Gold promotion for only $29.99.  This is HALF OFF what it will cost starting on November 1.  You can purchase this even if your current subscription is still active, it will just add on to the end.  I just did it, and got an e-mail that the new 12-month membership will be active starting April 5, 2011, when my current one runs out.  Just fire up your Xbox 360 and the offer should show up as one of the featured promotions.  This offer is active now and runs until Monday, 9/20.

Xbox Live: Price increasing to $59.99/year

It was just announced that Microsoft will be increasing the regular Xbox Live subscription cost by 20% to $59.99/year starting on November 1, 2010.  If you renew before then, you can avoid the increase for another year. I previously posted a special at Amazon.com for just $34.99 which I still think is the most efficient way of renewing your subscription.  That special is over, but it's worthwhile to keep your eyes open for sales like that.

HR - Servers stable

It appears that the server issues have been fixed for now. Matchmaking is working smoothly, and team play is working as well. Arena matches seem to be much slower to connect than Social Grab Bag.

GT wont' be on tonight

For those that get this on RSS and e-mail, I won't be able to make H2 night tonight at 10pm. A 6am meeting got scheduled after I wrote the post. I did verify during the day today, however, that the downloads are all available and that matchmaking is working correctly. Today is the last day you'll ever be able to play Halo 2 on Xbox Live, so get it while it's good! I sucked pretty hard, so wouldn't have helped you guys anyway.

Halo 2 Update

The Halo 2 multi-player maps are now available for download again and the links are working. In total, there are 6 downloads in total you will need to play Halo 2 on-line with Xbox Live. There is an Xbox Live title update that you will be prompted for as soon as you launch the game, and a second Halo 2 title update that you will need to download from within the game (it will prompt you). Then there are FOUR map packs you have to download from within Halo 2. Go to Xbox Live -> Content Download inside of the game menus. These are the map packs and download times (measured over 12 Mbps):

• Blastacular (Tombstone and Desolation): 4 minutes
• Maptacular (Terminal, Backwash, Relic, Elongation, Gemini): 6 minutes
• Bonus (Containment, Warlock): 3 minutes
• Killtacular (Turf, Sanctuary): 3 minutes

If you'd like to try and play Halo 2 again in the future (before April 15), please go download all the map packs and then comment here on which week you would like to play. If there is critical mass, I will set it up again. Remember that Halo 2 does not support the Xbox Live NXE party-chat system, so if you run into problems the week we're trying to do this, it will be hard to help you. Voice messages recorded in Halo 2 are also not interoperable from within the Xbox Live NXE.

Halo 2 Multiplayer Inaccessible

Apologies to those who tried logging into Halo 2 for Tuesday's clan night. They have apparently updated the matchmaking playlists to require several map packs. However, those map packs are not accessible for download from within Halo 2 anymore. I will look into solutions to this problem, but for now H2 multiplayer is not available. I also forgot that Xbox Live Party chat is not available for original Xbox games due to their limited Xbox Live support.

Xbox Live being dropped for original Xbox

On April 15, Microsoft is dropping Xbox Live support for original Xboxes and original Xbox games. That includes games like Halo 2 that were original Xbox games but run on the Xbox 360. This marks the end of an era. Does anyone want to fire up some Halo 2 before it goes away forever?

http://majornelson.com/archive/2010/02/05/xbox-live-being-discontinued-for-original-xbox-consoles-and-games.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MajorNelson+%28Major+Nelson+%28Xbox%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Xbox Live: $34.99

I believe that anybody who reads this blog has an Xbox Live Gold subscription. Amazon.com currently has 1 year subscription cards available for just $34.99, free shipping, no tax. I just got mine and applied it, so I can verify that there's no "catch." You don't have to wait for your current membership to expire, it will just add 12 months to the end of whatever your current plan is. This is a 30% savings over the normal rate of $49.99/year!

You Can Still Be a Hero

Many props go out to OD and BeerMonkeee for joining me in ODST Firefight on Wednesday. We did our small part in Bungie's campaign to raise money and awareness for Haiti earthquake relief. Apparently though, the Halo community at large is as apathetic as this clan is, and they didn't reach their maximum goal of players. If you couldn't motivate to log a few minutes of on-line game time this week to help the devastation in Haiti, you still have time to buy a t-shirt in the Bungie store to contribute to the relief effort

Haiti Relief Tonight. 9pm PT. H3/ODST

We'll be on-line tonight to support Haiti relief efforts. Join in at 9pm.

Send Relief to Haiti for Free

Bungie has announced that it will donate $100 to the Red Cross Haiti relief effort for every thousand people that play Halo 3 or ODST this Wednesdady or Thursday. All you have to do is play on-line with the special heart emblem. This is how you set it:

o Press START
o Select “SETTINGS” / “APPEARANCE”
o Select “EMBLEM”
o Select “Hearts” ICON, “Circle” BACKGROUND
o Back out to the APPEARANCES menu and select “COLORS”
o Set “EMBLEM PRIMARY” to RED (or MAROON / BRICK / ROSE depending on which game you’re playing!)
o Set “EMBLEM SECONDARY” to WHITE

OmniscientDeath and I will be on-line to help people with achievements if folks would like to play. If you are interested, leave a comment here and I'll schedule ODST foursomes or H3 teams. There's still tons of achievements to get. As a clan, we've only completed 56% of the ODST achievements. Here are the rarest achievements for our clan that you could get this week:

• Be Like Marty (Only 1 player has this besides OD and GT)
• Firefight: Last Exit (1 player)
• Firefight: Security Zone (1 player)
• Both Tubes (2 players)
• Firefight: Chasm Ten (2 players)
• Firefight: Lost Platoon (2 players)
• Firefight: Windward (2 players)
• Laser Blaster (2 players)
• Stunning! (2 players)
• Vidmaster Challenge: Deja Vu (2 players)
• Vidmaster Challenge: Endure (2 players)

If you'd like to help the Haiti effort through a different way, you can purchase a special ODST t-shirt through Bungie and 100% of proceeds will go to the Red Cross. That t-shirt is available here.

Free XBL Gold for L4D2

This weekend from 5pm GMT Friday, January 15th to 5pm on Sunday the 18th, Microsoft is upgrading Silver accounts to Gold for Left 4 Dead 2 multiplayer. Doesn't really apply to anybody in the clan, but folks would be able to play split screen with guests and enable voice chat for everyone. Leave a comment here if interested in gaming this weekend.

Left 4 Dead 2 Demo

If you had any doubts about whether or not to get L4D2, a demo was just released so you can try it out ahead of time. I've already pre-ordered my copy.

Click her to download to your Xbox directly.

Halo Waypoint

There will be an update coming out to the Xbox Live dashboard later this week. It includes support for Facebook, Twitter, Zune, as well as Halo Waypoint. I've been playing with these features for about a week now in the Beta test program and they're pretty cool. The Facebook app has a really slick photos interface that is actually cleaner than the native photo interface on the Facebook website. Halo Waypoint is a cool new destination for all things Halo and includes a bunch of "Waypoint Achievements." While these aren't new achievements for your gamerscore, they are based on the in-game achievements from Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3: ODST. Unlocking Waypoint Achievements leads to Avatar awards. You can check out my avatar on Xbox Live to see what's available. As you can see from the in-set graphic, I've already maxed out my Waypoint career, but presumably, most of you will have things you can still unlock when Waypoint goes live for the world.