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XBox (Games)

Bungie Wields the Banhammer 56

Posted by Zonk from the banhammer-my-favorite-game-journo-shorthand dept.
Gamespot reports that an update to Halo 2 via Xbox live has dropped the hammer on cheaters who have been warned in previous weeks to cease their malicious ways. From the article: "These undefeatable foes aren't some new alien species that have invaded the ruckus created by Bungie. These are the work of hackers and modders, gamers who spend time improving their stats with cheats at the expense of others. As with any high-profile title, cheaters will run rampant in an effort to 'pwn n00bs' and generally frustrate those who play fairly. Bungie has not taken kindly to these folk."
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Bungie Wields the Banhammer More

Bungie Wields the Banhammer

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  • About Time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kilocomp ( 234607 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @02:18PM (#13127720)
    As an H2 player I have seen a number of different cheats over time. We should have a small grace period of minimal cheating until new cheats are found. Hopefully bungie keeps up with the updates or else this game will be unplayable for myself and many others.

    PS.
    Does anyone know why people on Team Slayer sometimes kill themselves the whole game?
    • It's called griefing [wikipedia.org]. They ruin their own teams chances of winning by -1 suiciding themselves over and over again.
    • I agree. Bungie for the most part has been like a kinder, gentler claw on the hand of Microsoft Satan.
    • That is why I hate playing any team games anymore on Halo 2 unless i know everyone on the team...waaaay too frustrating otherwise. And even if everyone on your team is nice, the other team will quit if losing. If they need to fix anything in halo 2, its the wussy quitters...it takes like 5 games to have one full game without cheating or quitting, i swear.
      • If they need to fix anything in halo 2, its the wussy quitters...it takes like 5 games to have one full game without cheating or quitting, i swear.

        I agree, people who quit during the game have been a much larger headache for me than any griefers or cheaters. A lot of the time it seems to be the poorer players who quit, although it makes little sense to me. Do people not know that they are automatically ranked last when they quit during a game? Do they really think they'll get better by ducking out of games

        • Re:About Time (Score:5, Informative)

          by hunterx11 ( 778171 ) <[hunterx11] [at] [gmail.com]> on Thursday July 21, 2005 @03:11PM (#13128464) Homepage Journal
          Feedback is not handled by Bungie at all, however; it is handled by the Xbox Live Team. People banned based on feedback are banned from Live, not from any particular game. Quitting early, unfortunately, is not against the XBL Terms of Service. In fact, not even team-killing is.
          • Actually, repeated betraying and suiciding was classed a cheating I tihnk in one of the Weekly What's Updates. I certainly report as cheating the few times I see it. At least you can boot team killers.
          • That's why when people do that you leave them screaming feedback, or threatening/harassment or whatever it is.
        • I can understand you're not likeing it when people quit, but best as I can tell threatening them for it is a violation of the rules, but quiting isn't.
          Also what about when someones net connection goes down? Or thier young child suddenly needs help, or thier parent intervenes and shuts down thier game?
          I'll also point out that if you are in a game that's very lopsided then no one gets noticebly better, the poorer player has no real chance and dies repeatedly with little to no chance learn anything (un
          • I can understand you're not likeing it when people quit, but best as I can tell threatening them for it is a violation of the rules, but quiting isn't.
            Well here's the thing, I consider quitting a form of cheating, because you're essentially giving the other team the upper hand. Its even conceivable that an odd-numbered party (say 5 players) can artificially inflate some of their ranks by joinging a 4 on 4 game and then whoever gets put on the opposing team quits, giving their teammates an advantage. Wa
            • I'm a pc gammer mostly so I don't do live, it just looked like a good way for someone to be deprived of something they're paying for based on what's fun for them vs what's fun for you. I'm certainly not trying to do more than post an outsiders take on what you said.
              I appretiate you giving more info also.
              You may not like people who bail on games mid-stream, and are likely in the majority on that, but that doesn't mean they like being stuck playing what looks to be a boring game to them. And the rule

    • Re:About Time (Score:4, Informative)

      by tacroy ( 813477 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @03:29PM (#13128710)
      Actaully its not griefing in this case. It's called de-leveling. Its what people do when they want to be jerks and destroy people that arnt as good as they are. So they play for a while....start loosing..then de-level so that they can play not as skilled people in order to "pwn" them.
    • It's called play on a team with friends, and let the idiots bug the other teams. :) Friends lists are the only way that anything other than the rumble playlists are really playable.

      (BTW, my gt is "PMS GibGirl" if you need more folks for your friends list... just make sure to include a voice message)
      • That's precisely how you play any online game. I thought live was supposed to be a service that let you not have to do that, but I guess it isn't.
        • It makes it a lot easier to play with your friends... you don't have to talk over IM and figure out a server, only to find out there's not space for everyone, or deal with all that. It's also simpler to just add someone to your friends list there, and you can see what they're playing.

          It's not like it's set up to automatically match you up with friends. It would be nice to have an option to do that though...
  • ... it might be fun to play again.
    • Bungie has the advantage of being on xbox live, a controlled service. PC games with internet play have it much tougher.

      • Re:Now if only BZFlag would do this... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by RealityMogul ( 663835 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @02:40PM (#13128019)
        Halo for PC isn't that bad though. Since its fairly easy to run a modded map, the people that like to do weird stuff play those maps. Regular people play the other maps.

        The ones that get out of line can usually be taken care of with a little social engineering. If they're relatively new to the game, having somebody tell them to "press Alt F4 for the mod list" sometimes works. Other times you can just annoy them until they leave. For example, follow them around and keep walking in front of them. This usually has the effect of making them TK you. 6 of those and you're banned from the server.

        So there are ways of dealing with jerks online, you just have to know how to handle yourself most importantly.
        • An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind - the solution to griefing shouldn't be griefing (your "handling") the griefers.
          • No, it "shouldn't" be the solution, but in the case of a dedicated server where the host isn't available to kick a player out, you have to come up with your own methods. The only other solution you have in that scenario is to leave the game yourself. I'd much rather get the problem players to leave.
        • Halo for PC uses server-authoritative netcode, however. It is very hard to cheat, but at the same time you have to aim 10 feet in front of players in order to hit them because of the inescapable lag.
          • The only "cheat" I've found is for detecting invisible people. Although many people have video cards that don't handle cube mapping which gives the same results. So I guess it can't really be called a cheat.

            Lag is lag, I can't really imagine xbox live as being any better. I'm not familiar with how the xbox version works though.
            • Halo 2 uses predictive netcode, as does basically every other internet FPS today. It also uses things like simplified physics and event priority to ensure that the game is as playable as possible. Lag is lag, but in most games, you can at least aim directly at your target. The problem is that Halo 1 was never written with internet games in mind.
        • BZFlag is also open source, and more popular than HaloPC.
      • Nahhh. You do the same thing with guilds and various services and programs. The difference is, those of us in PC land don't have to pay for it.

        You play with your friends. You use things like XFire to keep in contact with your friends. You join guilds/clans and play guild/clan matches where cheating/griefing will get you banned.

        Drop out of losing matches frequently? Banned from that server. Cheat? Punkbuster will ban you from numerous servers.

        Within a few days of playing a new game you have your li
        • Managing a community is not BZFlag's problem. BZFlag can't issue a patch that bans people who use modified content, because the program is open source and over the internet. If for example, md5sum checks of files is done and then sent to the server, someone could just modify the source to pretend it got the right sums. Trivial. On the internet, there is no central server that you can ban people from. Sure, you can use your approach, but thats a different subject, and almost completly irrelevant to the BZFla

  • OK... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21, 2005 @02:25PM (#13127830)
    Why don't you just link the bungie.net article? News sites just continue a pointless cycle of linking.
    http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=aut oupdate4&p=4040317/ [bungie.net]
    • Because their forums suck. Gamespot at least has stable forums to talk on and are far less likely to censor opinion.
      • Bungie's forums are like an ecosystem. They know that they are going to get a bunch of crap post by 8 year olds all asking how much you love bungie or which map is the best or how cheaters suck and we should all reply to the post to convince bungie to ban one guy that cheated in the game they just played.

        Yeah, that would suck if that was all you saw. So they didn't add a search function so you those pointless posts would be intermingled with relevent questions that have been asked and answered 142 times al
        • That is why a forum like slashdot with moderation is so important to freedom of speech because it makes posts valued on a basis besides the time the post was made.

  • Patent Time! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Psmylie ( 169236 ) * on Thursday July 21, 2005 @03:17PM (#13128553) Homepage
    That headline gives me a great idea for a new invention... the bungie hammer! Simply hold the hammer over the nail you want pounded in and let go. Gravity does all the work! This could be a fun and exciting way to do some of those household repairs that you've been putting off because a regular hammer is just too boring. Think of all the excitement that will come of never knowing where the hammer will bounce to next! Will it hit the nail, or will it simply crush your foot, crack your kneecap, and bruise up your shin? And (most importantly) will it miss the crotch on its way back up?!

    This is quite possibly the worst idea I've ever had!

  • Important question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @05:36PM (#13130057)
    Has anyone gotten banned for having non-Halo 2 mods on their Xbox, e.g., disablable modchips, software mods, cheats for other games, installed Linux? I think I have the font exploit somewhere (not that it worked for me) and I know I have the "Emergency Linux" MechAssault hack - will Bungie bother me about these, or does it only look for Halo 2 hacks?

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