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A Beginners Guide to Boosting


Osaka Jim
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A Beginners Guide to Boosting

(aka: everything you wanted to know about boosting but were afraid to ask)

 

What is boosting? - Boosting is specifically aiming to get online/multiplayer achievements with others rather than just 'randomly' acquiring them through the game.

 

Use Your Headset – boosting without one is near impossible and both confusing and time consuming for others, make sure you have yours plugged in/turned on before you begin since not many people like waiting around for you to search under the bed for it once the game has started.

 

Communicate – having the headset switched on is one thing, using it is another. You have to communicate with other gamers, let them know what is going on and what achievements are being boosted for, don’t just sit there in silence giving out muffled yes/no answers all the time. If you can’t talk during the main game then let people know in the lobby.

 

Announce Yourself – Either when entering a new game lobby or when a new player joins, let others know that you are boosting for achievements and chances are a lot of people will offer to help out, allowing you to get the points all the faster. Not everyone can read minds so don't just kick people out for not following your rules when you haven't even told them what is going on.

 

Introduce Yourself – A partner rule for the above, when sending someone a friend request to boost make sure to send a message too stating what game you are planning on getting achievements for (keep abbreviations to a minimum) and when you are usually on-line. Send this in writing too just in case your accent is difficult for others to understand. Most people will ignore random messages from strangers with no explanation of who they are.

 

Learn The Lingo – "do you want to boost for achievements?" sounds simple enough but it seems quite a few people don’t have a clue what it means, even more shocking is that most of them post on this very same forum. You owe it to yourselves to learn the lingo since no one wants to spend time explaining (and then re-explaining) what boosting is or what achievements are. A bit of studying before hand makes the experience all the better for everyone.

 

Make The Effort – ever wonder why most achievement trading threads read like the lonely heart pages in local newspapers? With most posts going no further than "I want to boost in this game send me FR LOL" . Is it any surprise that a lot of people are still missing achievements? The next time you post, how about adding what achievements you need, what time you plan on being online and your location in order to adjust to different time zones? Even better, how about reading the multitude of posts above yours and replying to them instead? Make the effort of seeking others out as opposed to sitting back and waiting for them to come to you.

 

Have The Time and Connection – if you only have a very short five minutes online then don’t bother boosting. Most achievements take at least a quarter of an hour and no one likes people quitting out half way into a boosting session. Make sure you can stay on for a decent amount of time first and that your online connection isn't going to cut the second a gust of wind blows. It doesn't have to be 100% perfect but reliable is a step in the right direction.

 

Know When To Stop - A slight contradiction to the above but unless you know your boosting partners 110% then always assume that they have a job to go to or a family to spend time with. Three hundred more kills may seem like no time at all for yourself but for someone who has to get up early or has an angry spouse waiting for them (the worst punishment known to mankind) it equals a near lifetime of hassle. If someone has to go then show some courtesy and arrange another time to meet up, no one likes a whining little bitch, especially when they’re nagging to help them win fifty ranked matches at three in the morning.

 

Be Patient – Some achievements may take hours, days or even weeks of boosting to earn and likewise not everyone is a perfect shot with the sniper rifle or knows all the short cuts of a race course like the back of their hand. Remember, the best things come to those who wait.

 

Organization – Write down what achievements you need before hand, learn how to get them and think if you could get more than one at the same time. You also need to prioritize, if you can get the same achievements in single player then do them there, online boosting is mainly for online achievements and not everyone has time to waste.

 

Planning – There are countless messages from people wanting to boost yet hardly anyone is willing to set a time and date. The more you plan these things the easier they go, let people know when you intend to boost, the days, the times and it will often improve your chances tenfold.

 

Learn Some Common Sense – So you need three-hundred kills? Then don’t go hiding out in the far corner of the map, stay in a central point so that others can easily come to you. Don’t mess around when killing people either, quit jumping around like a kid on a sugar rush and don't even think about singing your favorite iPod tunes like a drunken uncle at a karaoke party, just get the job done so that everyone can move on.

 

Update Your Posts – If you have previously posted on an achievement trading thread but no longer wish to boost then simply edit your post to say that. This afternoon alone I have sent messages to four people (all who have posted in achievement trading threads in the past forty-eight hours) only to find that they are no longer interested in boosting anymore. Sorry folks, once again I can’t read minds.

 

Update Your Profile - Do you see all that information under your avatar (go on, have a look now) on the left hand side of the screen? That is like a treasure trove of information for people looking to boost. Not only does it contain your all important gamertag but above all else it allows you to state your location. How does that help? Simple, by looking at your location I can learn your time zone which in turn allows us to better organize sessions to boost for achievements. I’m very surprised by how many gamers seem to neglect this near essential tool and please, you are nowhere near important enough for people to want to stalk so don’t feel afraid of stating your country.

 

Quit Being A Jerk – No one likes being spoken to as if they're your pet monkey so stop yelling and talking down to them. The same goes for those who like to kick others out of games just for making the simplest of mistakes. The world if full enough of little Hitler’s as it is, no need to act like another one on Live is there?

 

Respect Other Gamers – Hogging all the achievements for yourself is a very bad idea. Take it in turns getting kills/flag captures (or whatever else is needed) so that you both work towards the same common goal and make sure you stick around until the others have gotten their achievements too. If you don’t want to help others then don’t expect others to help you. This simple rule is the one that gets forgotten the most.

 

Connections to Other Gamers - Make sure your NAT is set to open; I have had many boosting sessions fail because one person has a strict/moderate NAT and can't connect to someone in the party.

Edited by troy0891
added some other rules
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  • 11 months later...

I would suggest when you post saying what achievements you want to boost put a list of numbers afterwords. The list of numbers should be equivalent to the amount of people needed to boost the achievement, e.g., 6-8 numbers on the list if you were boosting for achievements on Halo 3 in Lone Wolves. It's also recommended to include two or three reserve spots because almost always one or two people will not show up.

 

Here's a template of what I'm talking about:

Quote

Hey guys, looking for <# of people> people to boost to get the <which achievements> achievements. If you want to join in then quote this post and edit your name and time zone onto the list. Also send me a friend request; my gamertag is <gamertag>, and a message saying that you saw my post on XBA and what game you want to boost in. Once the list is filled, we can organise a time and date that suits everyone.

 

1. <gamertag> <time zone>

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

 

Reserve spots

9.

10.

 

And here's an example of one in action:

Quote

Hey guys, looking 4-6 people to boost to get the original Lone Wolves achievements. If you want to join in then quote this post and edit your name onto the list. Also send me a friend request; my gamertag is SuperWeeSplash, and a message saying that you saw my post on x360a.org and that you want to boost in Halo 3. I'm a level 20 though so only people between the skill range of 17-23 or people willing to lower their rank to get in on this. I will work out times that suit everyone and a language setting once the list is filled.

 

1. SuperWeeSplash (GMT Time Zone)

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

Reserve spots

6.

7.

 

It may also be worth me adding 2 more things:

 

1) If you're organising the boost then you might want to specify a time and date that you are going to boost on when you create the list. You can see in my example I didn't. The problem with this is once everything added there name to the list and I started deciding on a time. It was hard to find a time that suited everyone on the list; whereas, if you choose a time when you post the list, only people that can make the time stated will add their name and therefore you shouldn't have any problems.

 

2) When you decide upon a time make sure to specify what time zone it's in. Also people can be lazy so if you want extra brownie points work out other peoples time zones for them. Obviously not all them but I tend to do the four main ones. For example:

Quote

The match will be at 9AM PST :: 11AM CST :: 12PM EST :: 5PM GMT

 

Here's a good website to help you convert the time zones:

http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

 

These lists tend to have a very high success rate at getting everyone all the achievements they need because it gets everyone together more effectively and reduces the amount of random boosting requests that get thrown all over the show with nothing coming of them. It also means that you can look for one of these lists before you post and if the last one you find is filled then you can create your own, if you feel comfortable managing a group of achievement hungry gamers that is.

Edited by bLaKgRaVy
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