AceMcCloud52,424 (32,990)

Gears of War 3 - Data Loss

For newcomers, I appologise, you weren't to know, for everyone else... come on, this is EPIC we're talking about, data loss is as Epic as Seriously.

A bit unfair? Well, let's just say I've been fed up loosing campaign progress in Gears of War on PC, having to re-unlock Insane playing Hardcore, then getting someway through Insane and loosing it and starting over.

Not to mention the more common Gears of War 2 Rank resets, yeah not fun for everyone it happened to, Even Bulletstorm had achievements issues and Echos resetting, etc.

Now we have Gears of War 3, a new Seriously and a whole new, even more horrid data loss issue. Campaign progress, Collectables, Executions, Mutators, MP Weapon & Character Skins, Ribbons and MEDALS, Medals... the 65 medals we have to Onyx for Seriously 3.0.

That's not even the worst bit, well I think anyway, you know those Beta unlocks? You got them right? Did you keep the Beta save file after they unlocked? No? uh oh... Oh, and did you play the first week, got the Golden Lancer and Hammerburst? Yeah... oh dear... oh and let's not forget all the unlocks for achievements... yeah you can't unlock those achievements again can you? Yep, all lost.

Finally, I've even heard some say it messes up your data so much, you won't be able to get Seriously 3.0? I don't know the details, but suffice to say many hit with this have shelved Gears of War 3, and you can kind of understand why.

There's already a thread at Epic's forums, growing day by day, slowly but surely, like the Vengeful medal, http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/835137-Dear-EPIC-My-Rank....

So, why am I blogging about it? Well, firstly for awareness, to warn my TA friends, and secondly to give some advice.

The way I game is to have an Xbox 360 USB Memory Stick (16GB official one by Sandisk, I realise any stick will do, however you want a good manufactuer and Sandisk is, plus it had Xbox 360 written on it so less likely to muddle it up with my other USB sticks), onto this I have my gamertag profile, the main reason being so I can easily move between the Xbox upstairs and downstairs. I also keep my game saves and small DLC on it too, big game addons and game demos I still keep on the Xbox 360 HDD.

Now, while I can't guarantee against profile corruption, I think it is the safest way, even in a Slim it's still a SATA HDD, with a mechanical head (maybe one day Solid State Drives will be standard in electonics, but not yet, couple more years maybe if not sooner), hence if there's a power cut, or disruption or even just bad programming, it can easily corrupt data, running your game from the HDD when your profile and data is also stored there could be more dangerous than running from disk, having to read both from the same source.

I'm also planning on investing in a APC Backups (an uninterruptable power supply or UPS), I'm going for a larger one to cover all consoles and my sat box (as it has a HDD too), however you can get a smaller/cheaper model just for the Xbox 360. This will guard against untimely power cuts killing your Gears 3 session, hopefully you should already have it on a surge protector to protect against surges.

Epic have said that playing offline is largely responsible for data corruption, of course it seems to be caused by mroe than going on the forums, even just loosing Xbox Live connection momentarily according to that thread. Epic plan a patch to coincide with the new DLC to "fix it".

Still, best advice is ALWAYS check your level before starting any match, wave or chapter!

Gears of War 3

Like most, I've been sucked into this and it's been stuck in my Xbox drive, pretty soon it'll require a surgical operation to remove it.

Many of us, me included are now missing only Socialite and the dreaded Seriously 3.0 (well, I also need the one for level 50, currently 36), well... not counting some unscrupulous gamers... anyway won't dwell on that, moving on...

Thankfully I've done every Insane (Difficulty-Based, i.e. Warmonger, etc.) Onyx medal, in all modes, and all 4 player, a great relief to get done (not overall bad, just the odd section here and there that drives you bonkers).

So... what's the plan.. lets see, DLC on the way, so got to build up those Horde fortifications, I spent ages concentrating on Turret as I thought it the most useful... didn't realise barriers and decoys unlock Silverback and Sentrys, both very useful, especially Silverback for DLC.

I also hear they're making changes to Beast, but not good ones, so best to work on Beast too.

I'm also a complionist, I hate less than 100% progress bars in front of me, so lately I've been on a mission to get all those ribbons, sitting at 96% with only a few left, which without assistance, I'm sure is just completely luck based.

Ribbons

Beast mode
Pop Goes the Weasel
Team Shaman
Team Savior

Horde
Long Hauler - must make time to do this, on Casual with mutators to speed it up, probably put a session up for it)
I Gotcha - Again, probably need to just make a quick boosting session for it.

Then lots of Horde for fortification building, and Beast to Onyx the Beast medals.

Then hit up the DLC and do all of those.

After that... don't know.

So... what's all my old TA buddies up to with Gears 3? Anything of the above? Message me.

Seriously... I don't believe it!

Seriously, get in there!

Finally, I join the ranks of Seriously owners out there, and boy am I glad it's over!

I know what you're asking... when did it unlock for me?

10,051

What's that? I'm lying? You've been watching my progress, or at least looked at my last status update which was at 11,033. Well, yes that was the Leaderboard amount, so to compare to what other people report, I got Seriously at 12,578 according to the leadboard.

So... why do I think I got it at 10,051? Well, thanks to some helpers I really power boosted though it and I kept detailed stats on it, and my main partner is forcast to have it before the end of the day, if unlocks when I/we think it will, it proves that the Grenade Tag rebound kill does NOT count [Update: It unlocked for him a little earlier, so I think I'm right and he just forgot about some other kills he must have got a while ago]. Also, it appears Map-specific as most of my Seriously kills were on War Machine, but my weapon achievement kills were on Gridlock, Canals and Rooftops. Even going by the base number of 100 kills each, 900 kills is a large block you can't fail to notice unlocks at or goes past.

Final stats:
10,051 Seriously Kills excluding Grenade hugs/rebound kills
11,169 Seriously Only Kills
12,069 Seriously Kills + Minimum Weapon Kills
12,424 Seriously Kills + Total Weapon Kills
12,578 Leaderboard Kills

Weapon Kills are the ones I collected while focussing on getting all the weapon kill achievements, which I did first, mostly on Gridlock, but also Canals and Rooftops. Minimum is 100 kills each for the achievement, and Total Weapon Kills is actually how many I think I got before the achievement unlocked (they never unlock on 100 exactly) for that weapon, some took more than others.

Seriously Kills are the ones I got on War Machine while specifically going for Seriously.

I'd not used any other maps, except briefly for the other ranked achievements of course.

Useful information there, anyone still going for Seriously, stick to the same map, and don't expect grenade hug/rebound kills to count, only the person who did the grenade tag will get a kill for it. This also includes Torq Bow and Chainsaw/Melee. My advice is to not bother going for this extra sneaky kill (however you're getting it) and instead alternate and share the single kill. Otherwise, if you're the type to get tagged all the time, expect Seriously to take you twice as long as the guy who is tagging/Torq Bow'ing you.