{"id":541,"date":"2011-01-09T17:50:08","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T08:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/?p=541"},"modified":"2011-01-09T17:50:08","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T08:20:08","slug":"rabbitswarcourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/?p=541","title":{"rendered":"RabbitsWarCourse"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been nearly three weeks since my last Sunday-night update, and that’s largely because of my recent Gears of War<\/em> boosting habit.<\/p>\n

I say “habit” for good reason; my Gears<\/em> boosting became an addiction. When I first started boosting for the Seriously Achievement, I guesstimated that it would take about one hundred<\/em> sessions to complete… that was about three<\/em> hundred hours’ worth of Xbox occupancy. With various time off, and with various other stuff on my plate, I figured I could manage two or three of those sessions a week… a year of effort, then.<\/p>\n

But in my first couple of sessions I fell in with a group of other boosters (Lita, Narv, and Beets, with a couple of regulars like Wicky and The Polish Guy) who were more than accommodating, and a barrel of laughs to-boot. Two or three sessions a week turned into two a day<\/em>, five times a week. The purchase of a second copy of Gears<\/em> led to the introduction of the double-boxing crew (Bolch, Saturn, Raven, and then Slash and Danger)… all the while, with every multiplier, the outstanding time I guesstimated for my Seriously Achievement was dropping.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, I realised that I could finish it before the Fringe<\/a> this year (in mid-February); hell, I could finish it in January.<\/p>\n

Or even early January.<\/p>\n

I returned from Christmas with my family late on the 27th of December, and leapt straight into a late-night boosting session. I went to bed around 2am, then got up again at 5am for another session; the entire Christmas \/ New Year break was a cacophony of sleep and boosting, catching both wherever I could (although one 5am session was shamefully missed when I slept through my alarm. Literally. I woke up three-and-a-half hours late, alarm still blaring away. I sheepishly apologised to the Team; they laughed, and thanked me for the extra kills).<\/p>\n

One by one, my friends and accomplices in this most Serious of goals started dropping out, having Achieved what they set out to do; many of them donated their second box (or even both<\/em> their boxes… thanks Bolch, Narv, Lita, and Beets!) to sessions in order for the stragglers to pick up quick extra kills. And for all of use, there was a pleasing social regularity to proceedings; check TA to see if anyone had got their Achievement recently, then hit the sessions, get the gossip (who popped? what was their count?), and start grinding those kills out.<\/p>\n

Raven popped at 11,154; Narv at 12,345. Lita, presumably stymied by a number of network drop-outs, had to wait for 13,246 – and the pause at the end of each game was almost heartbreaking, as we waited in vain for her squeal of delight. And then Beets and I were surging through the 11-thousands, with him trailing me by 300 kills…<\/p>\n

…and, at the end of one match, after 11,291 kills, Beets yelled out in jubilation. And I did not.<\/p>\n

I don’t mind admitting that I felt absolutely gutted at that moment. I’d played alongside Beets for probably two-thirds of the time, and with only slight variations of play; yet his Achievement had popped, and mine had not. Deflated, I pushed on, running alongside Slash and Danger as we surged through the kills again. Another day, another seven hours, and Seriously had still not unlocked.<\/p>\n

Finally, after another four demoralising hours, it popped – at 13,166. I didn’t exclaim my delight out loud; I just smiled to myself as I felt the dejectedness fall away. And then I had a glass of wine. Or two.<\/p>\n

Remembering all the kindness that had been shown to me by others, I stayed in the game. Eventually, word got around and the congratulations poured in, but I became focussed on getting others to that goal. Slash popped next, at 11,550, and as I type this now Slash and I are sitting ducks as Danger runs rampant, racking up 57 kills every twelve minutes. I’m now paying it forward.<\/p>\n

It may sound clich\u00e9d, but I’m going to miss those sessions. For 27 days I chatted to the same group of people about pretty much everything (though I’ll freely concede that, if there was a downer of a conversation topic, I probably brought it up). Sure, it was a gaming grind – but it was a sociable one. I really meant it when I said that Gears<\/em> provided the Surprise Discovery of the Year<\/a> for the sense of community I felt; but that provided another little thrill when Raven read that post<\/a> and was delighted himself. And Slash’s acceptance speech<\/a> says it all far better than I ever could.<\/p>\n

So – I’m sad (and glad) that Seriously is out of the way. Another little bit of effort saw all the rest of the Gears<\/em> Achievements wrapped up. One more playthrough, a more considerate blog post, and – after four years – Gears of War<\/em> will be struck from The List<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking of The List… The Rub Rabbits<\/em> was finally completed. Fucking Stampede Memories. The less said about that, the better, I think, lest this otherwise positive post become a torrent of bile.<\/p>\n

Finally: for the last couple of years, I’ve always seemed to manage to have a nice little palate-cleanser of a game first thing in the New Year. This year, I fired up Doritos Crash Course<\/em> (which I’d conveniently forgotten to include in all my end-of-year calculations) on New Year’s Day… and bloody hell did that entertain me when I wasn’t whoring Gears<\/em>! All Achievements wrapped up (including some bastard-hard Gold Medal times)… Fantastic stuff, and well worth the free download<\/a> (for your 360).<\/p>\n

So – the next week should see Gears<\/em> completed, and maybe – just maybe – I’ll start Enslaved<\/em>, after an irresistible bargain appeared in the New Year sales…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been nearly three weeks since my last Sunday-night update, and that’s largely because of my recent Gears of War boosting habit. I say “habit” for good reason; my Gears boosting became an addiction. When I first started boosting for the Seriously Achievement, I guesstimated that it would take about one hundred sessions to complete… … Continue reading RabbitsWarCourse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[106,18,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}