A New Home for Themed Challenges and Halls of Fame

Following the unexpected shut-down of the Bioware Social Network Forums, the Themed Challenges Group (previously mentioned in my N7 Day posts about Solo and Duo Themed Challenges) was forced to move to a different location (since, obviously, we refused to just lie down and bleed out).

Themed Challenges and Halls of Fame now constitute a dedicated site, Prestacious’ Challenges, hosted by the founder and leader of the group, a fabulous guy and a good friend, Prestacious. Along with the various challenge series, the new site also hosts the Gold Solo Speedruns Hall of Fame, and the Platinum Solos Hall of Fame (which is since recently under the management of yours truly).

The bulk of the Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer community has moved to BSN Unofficial Forums, so submissions for the Halls of Fame are mostly done there, in the Themed Challenges and Hall of Fame thread and the Platinum Solos Hall of Fame thread. However, submissions are also welcome on the Forum associated with Prestacious’ Challenges site.

Come visit us, get challenged and inspired, and get ready for the journey to Andromeda!

Modding Skyrim to Perfection

I’m a great fan of The Elder Scrolls games. Morrowind was the first role playing game I ever played, the first game I ever modded, and for a long time, my undisputed favorite across all genres and flavors. Then came Oblivion, which was the first game to keep me obsessed for a thousand hours and the first game (or any form of entertainment) that had me write fanfiction. It’s no exaggeration to say that these games changed my life, and I don’t mean just my “gaming life”.

So it shouldn’t be difficult to imagine that I had great expectations from Skyrim. It was to be larger, prettier and better than its predecessors in just about every way imaginable – and mostly it didn’t fail to deliver. Yet, even though I got it immediately upon release and tried playing it twice, I couldn’t get into it, and I never finished it.

It is only now, with more than a hundred mods installed, that I’m finally able to enjoy Skyrim the way I always hoped to.

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Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer: Themed Solo Challenges

Part 3 of Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Revisited

I explained the mechanics of Themed Challenges in the previous post. Solos are in principle no different from duos — only they’re much harder to do.

In a way, I started playing this game solo. With the SP campaign finished twice, once immediately upon release and once again when the Extended Cut appeared, I was naturally curious about the MP, but at the same time I was horribly afraid to go online and play with random people. (Have I mentioned this was the first online game I’ve ever played?) So for the longest time I struggled on my own, on Bronze, playing the vanilla Human Soldier on Firebase White vs Cerberus and Geth, as they could be held for entire waves from a single defensive position. Well, entire waves 1 and 2. I’d die as soon as the objective on wave 3 made me move around. It was extremely frustrating and didn’t get me anywhere, since not many credits can be earned in incomplete games. But still I kept trying!

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Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer: Themed Duo Challenges

Part 2 of Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Revisited

It was almost exactly a year ago when I asked a friend if he’d be willing to play some duos with me. I had nothing very particular in mind, just the added challenge of completing a match with only two players, which I’d only done a couple times before on purpose (it happens every now and then that a public game begins or becomes a duo by chance, though few will end that way).

The friend wasn’t up for it: obviously solos and duos are much harder and slower than regular, full-team games, and require both more focus and patience to complete. However, he suggested I contact another player, who I didn’t know at the time, and who allegedly liked to play duos. And indeed, later that week the mentioned player made a post on BSN, looking for a duo partner. So I volunteered.

Little did I know what I was getting into.

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Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Revisited

It’s been more than two years since I wrote about ME3 MP for the first time. And I played it almost every day since, for an astonishing total of over 2000 hours and over 7000 games. One might reasonably assume that there cannot possibly be anything left to keep me interested and challenged. Not so!

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Warhammer 40k Space Marine

The Imperial Forge World of Graia is being invaded by the Orcs. Instead of an all-out retribution that would put the production of invaluable Titans at risk, the Ultramarines are deployed to resolve the situation before it escalates. But of course it does escalate when the forces of Chaos unexpectedly appear on the scene with an interest in a powerful artifact.

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