Mass Effect 3 Special Week-Long Operation: Lodestar (5th-10th March 2013) [Updated]

 

As you might be aware Mass Effect 3 will become one year old in a short while and to celebrate BioWare have decided to give the fans a special event. In the first extended operation of it's kind (five days long), there are tiered challenges and the opportunity to unlock three Commendation packs. This means that you could earn three promotional weapons by successfully completing all the individual goals! Unfortunately the wording of the operation hints, to me at least, that these operations may soon be drawing to a close and that active involvement by the developers on multiplayer will now cease entirely. You can read the full details below:

Operation: LODESTAR (Mar 5^th-10^th)

We are coordinating the largest-scale attack in the brief history of this war. N7 unit actions will pave the way for resistance and conventional forces trying to retake the population centers of our homeworlds. There is no retreat. When an objective is finished or a target destroyed, you will immediately focus on the next. Our assets will provide cover to network ships that will update your targets in real-time. Rally points are at your disposal in the event that all space assets meet with catastrophic casualties. From there, you will fight as your CO sees fit or until further orders arrive.

I cannot fully express my deep respect for all of you, the sapients of the Milky Way who serve together under our banner. When future generations look back on this war, they will see the courage and commitment it takes to change the fate of a galaxy. It has been a hard road, but at last: the end is in sight. Finish it.

–Admiral Steven Hackett

Individual Goal: This challenge is tiered:

• Participation (extracting on any difficulty) earns the 1^st-tier reward.
• Extracting against all four enemy factions on Silver difficulty or higher earns the 2^nd-tier reward.
• Extracting against all four every enemy factions on Platinum difficulty earns the 3^rd-tier reward.

Rewards:

• 1^st tier – Commendation Pack.
• 2^nd tier – A second bonus Commendation Pack and a banner, (“Stood Fast, Stood Strong, Stood Together”)
• 3^rd tier – A third bonus Commendation Pack.

There was also a patch that came along with this operation, official details have yet to be released but I hear that they include a few new banners, including a special one for this operation, I'll update if/when I hear anything more.

When I logged onto multiplayer this evening there was already a gift pack waiting in the multiplayer store, I'm not sure if this is considered the first Commendation pack or that it's just an extra gift from BioWare to celebrate the anniversary?

For the most part I think everyone who has been playing for a while, can handle one extraction verses the four factions on Silver difficulty but Platinum will be a tall order. If you can get a party going with friends, this might be the best way to complete those matches, if like me some of your friends have stopped playing, I think now would a good time to get a reunion going, even if it's just for old times sake.

I came across an interesting tactic to complete these challenges a bit quicker, apparently completing Platinum games counts towards extracting on the "Silver or higher" challenge tier. But I should warn you that some people are reporting that they're only unlocking one commendation packs even though they technically completed both challenge tiers at the same time. It's unclear why this is occurring but a safer route would be to play three platinum matches against 3 of the 4 factions, then play one match on Silver against the remain faction, this will secure your second commendation pack. Then you play against that same faction on Platinum and this should then unlock the third and final commendation pack.

Good luck and if this does turn out to be the beginning of the end of the ME3 multiplayer, it was fun while it lasted :D

P.S. Keep an eye out for some cake ;)

Source of information was quoted from official BioWare Blog post. 

Update: I just found out that the patch also included the ability to unlock additional Thermal Clip and Cobra Missile carrying capacity by +1. So now like the Medi-Gels and Ops Survival packs, you can carry a max of 6 into a match. Just as I'm working on my Platinum solo, nice :)

Update 2: The Gift pack in the multiplayer is the first Commendation pack mentioned in the operation description, you don't actually need to do anything to unlock this pack, it will be there after you log onto multiplayer.