Does It Make Sense To Ban Players From Xbox Live Just For Using A Glitch?
from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept
Microsoft recently got some attention for cutting off hundreds of thousands of Xbox Live players for using modded Xboxes -- even if there was no evidence they were used for cheating. This is already leading to talk of a class action lawsuit against Microsoft. Even so, Microsoft is now going even further, issuing temporary bans for all of Xbox Live for anyone using a certain "exploit" in Modern Warfare 2 that lets a player set off a grenade after they die in the game. It makes sense for Infinity Ward to create a fix for their own programming mistake, but it seems rather ridiculous for Microsoft to kick people out of the game for doing what the game actually allows. Why blame players for merely doing what is allowed by the game itself?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: ban, exploit, xbox live
Companies: infinity ward, microsoft
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Ban Them
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Re: Ban Them
Do you sense a common theme on techduh?
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Holy Christ
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Just fix the game and be done with it
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Re: Re: Ban Them
Life is unfair sometimes people :)
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In economics there's a similar principle called the Tragedy of the Commons. Sure you can talk about not "exploiting" the glitch that gives you an advantage, but people by and large are selfish and will do what's in their own self interest, even if that means that others will suffer, and they themselves will at some point face negative consequences. Is that the gamers fault? Not really. It's just human nature, and in this case the blame falls squarely on the programmers shoulders.
Naturally MS seeks to make the negative consequences immediate to preserve some semblance of fair play. As long as everyone knows about this policy from the get go, then if they still choose to use the glitch, they can't complain when they get banned. But what a boneheaded move by IW. Nice job in QA, asshats.
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Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
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That said, the gamers who play the MW2 legitimately are going to want some semblance of justice, and they get it.
Now if only Microsoft would ban the little homophobic racists that squawk into the mic... then we'd be in business.
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Oh, and what about anyone who got past the software? Answer: Umm, the anti-cheat software will ban all cheaters!
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Re: Re: Ban Them
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Re: Ban Them
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Please, those people using it during a public match are cheating and spoiling the match for the others. Get over it and don't risk the suspension, or do it in private match only.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
Semantics. Exactly. Why can't we just call everything by what it actually is?
Everything is bullshit.
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Re: Ban Them
It doesn't make it wrong, either.
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Also Mike, ask yourself, if it has gotten to this point,
Microsoft banning people, the coders who built the game couldn't develop a patch by this time ? I call BS. Unless and until I hear from the developer here, I will assume they were simply taking their sweet time. If MS got enough complaints, they probably were promted to step in, or asked to. Any backlash the developer takes is well deserved.This isn't a permanent ban. It only temperarily bans knowing cheats. Again, tough.
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Just because you have no self-control and are falling into "human nature" isn't an excuse. I (and everyone else playing honestly) paid $60 for the game same as you and you've got no right to ruin it for us. As I said, IW gets their share of blame here too as this glitch apparently exists on all platforms. They have said it will be patched but it is being rolled into another title update that will include a bunch of other changes and has no announced release date. That's ludicrous and is a sign of this developer's continuing arrogance towards their community.
All that said, it does not justify ruining the game for others by taking advantage of this exploit and yeah, if you choose to be an idiot and do it, you damn well shouldn't be allowed to play with those of us who can use it but choose not to because we're more honest than you. I agree the ban should be temporary (as I believe it is) and that permanently kicking people off Xbox Live is going too far. You have the ability to be a racist, homophobic, threatening douchebag over the Xbox Live voice chat too but most people would agree that it isn't OK to be one just because the system allows you to be.
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That's the worst. You can't see them and the get a near 360 view of their immediate area. So dumb.
Why haven't they fixed that glitch? Or banned player's who take advantage of it?
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Heh
MS: *BANHAMM0R*
Player: "Uh, what? What'd I do?"
MS: "YOU TOTALLY ABUSED A GLITCH IN THE GAME THAT WAS PUT THERE BY THE PROGRAMMERS BUT SHOULDN'T BE USED!!"
Player: "Did what now?"
etc.
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Re: Ban Them
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Re: Stupid golf and car analogy
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For those who are unaware, there IS a difference. An exploit is using a bug or other glitch in the game, as packaged, to produce an unintended consequence. Rocket-jumping in Team Fortress Classic was actually an exploit. (In TF2 it's a feature. Go figure.) Using this is an exploit. Cheating is purposefully using something extraneous to the game to affect the game's state, and, in theory, gives you an unfair advantage over everyone else. Using the developer console to turn on godmode, flight, or anything else, when that's nominally disabled, is a cheat. Using a memory editor to alter game values, is a cheat. Editing the game files to cause every player to have a large red box around them, is a cheat.
MOST Online communities understand this difference. The penalties usually less for exploits, because you couldn't exploit something if they hadn't put it in there in the first place. This doesn't mean it's ok to exploit, merely that the penalties are less because it's originally the devs' fault, and they will fix it.
So from this perspective, banning these players is stupid. At least it's only 24 hours though. That's really a slap on the wrist. A week would be serious NERD RAAAAGE business, I suppose.
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Re: Re: Stupid golf and car analogy
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Drawn a line down the middle of the room...
Here's your space for playing with your crazy suicide bombing glitch, and here's mine. Then, make a one-time, permanent ban in the no-nonsense arena for violators.
Honestly, how hard could it be?
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The only difference here is that it is a more overt glitch (apparently - I don't have MW2 myself), but it is still 100% the developers' responsibility to fix. Banning people for what is common gaming behaviour (getting ahead any way you can) is stupid.
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OMG! HAKORS!!!!
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Re: Re: Ban Them
Perhaps, but does that mean you should dismiss everything said as "well, that's clearly got emotion in it, let's ignore any facts or points of view that may be valid within the post and call out the emotional fallacy again."
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Re: Re: Re: Stupid golf and car analogy
Exploiting hacks is cheating.
Exploiting game features is cheating.
Whenever you play a game in a unintended manner it's cheating and you will more than likely be discplined by the GM's. That may result in termnation of your account or a suspension of your game priveleges. Period.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
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I blame project natal
Which makes sense. I mean, if you can find a way to make users go buy new hardware, you can finance project natal, but, it puts Horacio Gutierrez, working with his wife's brother, Cesar Chavez on the problem which in reality is like a bad episode of The Dog Whisperer.
Next thing you know, Robbie Bach will greenlight a new XBox Live "Feature". It will allow you to play again, if you go to BestBuy and purchase the $79.99 XBox Credit Card Terminal Accessory, and swipe your credit card and agree to pay a $50 penalty fee.
I mean, positive incentives could work as well as Bing Cash Back.
Inside sources tell me that the next generation of XBoxes will be scent enabled. They will put out the scent of warm cookies when everything is working right, and let out a real rancid smell if it detects a modchip or you find something a lazy/cheap/overseas programmer didn't run proper QA on.
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In using the Service, you may not:
use or distribute unauthorized cheats, macros, or scripts; or
exploit a bug, or make an unauthorized modification, to any software or data to gain unfair advantage in a game , contest, or promotion.
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Don't like it or the bans, don't agree to the Terms of Use and don't use Xbox LIVE
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Re: OMG! HAKORS!!!!
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just patch it and move on M$... quit acting like a feminine hygiene product one might use on a summers eve....
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Not true. I watched the tutorial. It would be perfectly easy to stumble upon this exploit and find yourself banned with no idea of why.
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Of course, if they don't communicate well to the players that doing this is cheating, that could make the bans a problem; even if that were the case though, it's just temporary bans we're talking about here.
This is really a completely different issue from the modding conflict, and I don't see how even the temp-banned players can really fault Microsoft in this case.
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Get it through your thick skulls Bill G needs you to buy a console!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/152173/.html?tk=rss_news
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The glitch exploits in other games though? Like in Halo 2? Fuck yes ban those asshats, temporarily, for a day. It's not a perma-ban offense, but it sure is lame to have the other team super jump up somewhere you can't reach them without also exploiting a glitch.
The glitch ruins the experience if something has to be exploited to level the field. Those super jumps I mentioned in H2 aren't just a button press, something dumb like crouch under this over hang and jump in this direction. Something like this should be discouraged with a temp ban.
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More like a bitch than a glitch
I'd even wager that this was originally an intended feature with unintended effects, then when too many people bitch about it, so the mods called the ban.
Instead of banning people they ought to instantly send you to a secret level called 10,000 virgins only to find that they are eternally whining about how you chose to play the game.
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The glitch is by holding a sticky grenade in your hand while your Javelin is equipped results in the undischarged *Javelin ammo exploding* and killing everything within a ~50 yard radius. (If you watch the videos close you'll see in the kill list that the kills were credited to the Javelin, not a grenade.)
That gun is not built to do explode on death and there is no way to legitimately trigger this in game without using the quick swap weapon glitch/bug.
I see no problem with MSFT removing disruptive players who employ bugs in the software to gain an competitive advantage or to grief others. This is why I'm OK paying $50 a year for the service. I don't want to play games in the wild west where anything goes, I want a fair playing field where I can have fun and being on the receiving end of this glitch (which I have been a number of times) is not fun.
People get temp banned for language used that has zero impact on gameplay itself, why should this behavior which has a direct impact on gameplay be any different?
[Full Disclosure: I work at Microsoft but do not work in the games group in any way.]
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It is obviously unintended and people who exploit this unintended effect (which only happens when you create a race condition on weapon switching, this doesn't happen simply because you equipped the Javeline) are knowingly trying to gain an unfair advantage due to a bug in the game.
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Lots of people missing the point
No one is here to argue about To Ban or Not to Ban. That issue is already passed. The glitch is disruptive to regular player so ppl are told not to do it and if you do you'll get a temporary ban so you won't cause grief to other players.
HOWEVER, what MS is doing is banning people completely off Xbox live, which seems to be overly broad and over the top. Xbox is a device that ties into the online service so much that if you cannot connect to xbox live, the machine is quite useless.
If you have problem comprehending the issue, consider this. A person is found to repeatly yelling in a library disrupting all other users. However, the city government sent him a notice to ban him from all city owned facilities including but not limit to, the library, the swimming pool, the skating arena, the motor vehicle branch, the city hall building, public parks...etc. How is that an appropriate action?
MS is either overdoing the punishment, or they simply lack the ability to ban an account from using one single service inside Xbox live services. If it's the first then they are a whole bunch of a**holes. If it's the latter then it's really something they have to implement, quickly.
either way, MS is really demonstrating how one should NOT buy an xbox because MS can tread all over you, when it wants and however it want.
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KABOOM!!!
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Why the 500GB. foresight. the 250GB is running around and all i need is a security sector from it :)
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Re: Re: Ban Them
A cheat is a cheat...in Black Hawk Down there were those who would get close enough to a wall that they could shoot through them. Of course you couldn't hit them, and the server hosts would boot them and they'd have to re-enter the map.
This situation on the other hand is an IW problem, not MS. If I remember correct, It's called Martyrdom in World at War and maybe even Modern Warfare. Correct me if I'm wrong.
But beyond ALL that, It's a WAR SIMULATION. In actual combat, the enemy doesn't play with kid gloves.....EVER.
Life blows.
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Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
Basically, in this situation, you have millions of gamers on one side, and a small number of abusers on the other side. The abusers get a time out, and Mike is basically complaining about them getting a time out. But what about the other gamers who play fairly, and get screwed out of their gaming experience by someone exploiting a hole? You could end up with a whole bunch of players who just stop playing because of it. In the end, Microsoft is protecting the gaming experience of the majority of users, and at the same time doing something good for it's bottom line.
Sadly, protecting honest players doesn't bring moral outrage, so the story doesn't lean that way.
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The exploit here is that people somehow glitch out one of the rocket launchers so that every time they die a huge explosion (MUCH MUCH bigger than a 'nade) kills everyone in the area.
I was playing yesterday, and 2 guys were exploiting this. Basically what happens is, every time you shot them, you would die. They would blow up in an explosion so big that you and anyone else around would die. It made the game pretty much unplayable for everyone else on the other team.
They were fully aware that it was an exploit and were laughing at everyone about it on voice after the match.
Do I feel bad if those guys get banned for 24 hours? Not one bit. These people are fully aware they're doing something they shouldn't, and laughing in the faces of the 10 other people who's games they're ruining.
I'd be shocked if any of the people bitching above had played MW2, or were gamers at all.
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Be like Valve
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Re: Lots of people missing the point
All of this moral outrage because asshole kids exploit games and can't go online to download new clothes for their avatar is incredibly irritating. Especially because it's just academic and coming from people who don't even use the service in the majority of instances.
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Really, Microsoft?
It's amazing, but it seems the rub is that someone (maybe the gorillas and baboons in marketing that have chiggers) somehow think this AI/programming issue is the player's fault. Whoever made that decision is going to get a hefty promotion for Christmas, as failure happens to be a very desirable trait... or so I'm told.
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Re: Re: Lots of people missing the point
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Re: Re: Re: Lots of people missing the point
You're comment is tough to follow- it looks like your formatting was lost from the talking points memo you cut-and-pasted that from.
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LOL
...so, use it back on them?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Lots of people missing the point
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I haven't seen so many people complaining about unfair wartime tactics since the British redcoats stood still in the Revolutionary War.
If you can do it, it's fair. Adjust and keep on playing.
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Re: Re: Ban Them
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The rules in a video game are defined by what you can and cannot do in the created world. If you can throw a grenade after you die, then a glitch has occurred and the rules of the game must be revised with a patch. Same principle as a ref who doesn't call a traveling violation.
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Re: Sportsmanship?
It's a game about war, not tennis. Sportsmanship doesn't enter into it.
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The reason Microsoft is banning people is because Activision and Infinity Ward are cheap.
Many of you may not know this, but Microsoft charges publishers for certifying game updates, and also charges them for publishing them (iirc, the first is free) onto Xbox Live.
Activision doesn't want to pay out more money when they already have a planned update coming. They just want to roll up the fix for this into their big update.
So the compromise is Microsoft bans the small about of people using this glitch so Activision saves a few bucks, which is pretty despicable considering the MILLIONS of dollars they made selling the game.
It's all about the almighty dollar, as is extremely evident in the handling of the PC port.
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Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
Or let me put it this way. My car is built to ALLOW it to go 130mph. There some situations where I could do this at no danger to others. But if I do in a public place, can you guess who wouldn't be driving again for quite some time?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lots of people missing the point
>> for you but alas your but a Anon coward.
You either address the question or you don't. Don't make excuses. Excuses are unacceptable.
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Re: Re: Re: Lots of people missing the point
Excuse me if I don't find this position sympathetic.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lots of people missing the point
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Re: Holy Christ
I work in the Anti-Cheat field with the largest known anticheat software in the world.
While this wouldn't get you on our ban list had they chose a real anti cheat software, it will cause you to end up on most all of our member severs private ban list for this bullshit.
If you have no ethics in game what ethics do you have in real life. Thats the question people should be asking.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
That's totally not semantics.
"Technically, they didn't make the grenade go off after death, it's that they didn't keep from making the grenade going off."
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lots of people missing the point
That sounds like an excuse to me.
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That was 9 years ago. You're slacking.
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You decide to continue that unacceptable behaviour.
Why is it the supplier's fault for following through on the ban?
Why don't you have to accept responsibility for your actions / choices?
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Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
Aside from this being one of the lamest responses ever, it still doesn't hold water. You say not everyone can do it, and then you list a reason why people might not know how. That simply restates that everybody could do it, if they cared. So you contradict yourself. As well as it is a stupid response.
ChadBroChill is perfectly correct, everybody can do it, so it is still balanced.
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Re: Re: Holy Christ
HAHAHAHA! Yes, that's it. Because gaming is SOOO important, such a high priority, and has such high real-life stakes that it inspires just the kind of moral and ethical decisions that a person makes in life.
Seriously, it's a freaking game. What is the worst possible thing that can happen if someone cheats? Some pixels get artificially killed when they shouldn't have. That's why games are escapism. There are no real consequences, and that's a lot of what makes games so attractive. Talk about moral outrage. To suggest that a person who exploits a glitch is necessarily dishonest in life is laughable at best, and ridiculously, hilariously, nutso outrageous at worst. Give me a break. Take a look at your life's priorities.
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Re: Lots of people missing the point
Good Write up William!
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the terms of service are fairly broad, and as many people have pointed out, there are many other games with glitches that were abused and people weren't banned. it's more like the speed limit on a set of roads was 'not too fast' and people who have been driving at their normal speed on the new road got a suspension, then someone updates their twitter to say that on that particular road, "not too fast" has a lower limit that other roads.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
It's either A: Intentionally programmed into the game/software, or B: It is an unintentional consequence of some other bit of code that allowed something that was never intended to be allowed.
It's not semantics, it's intent.
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Now it does when it's done in this way.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ban Them
If the software is so buggy that people start flying off the ground, does it mean people have to expend extra effort trying to stay on the surface?
So, technically, the users failed in making their grenades not go off.
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Are Glitches part of game design?
http://www.sirlin.net/
I agree with William though, MS's take on the issue with full day bans are overboard for a developer's hindsight of testing.
On the other hand, there has to be some repercussion to disrupting play with a game-breaking glitch. Most "glitches" tend to sort themselves out as people will find a counter to the glitch, an then a counter to the counter and so on. But when you reach a point where there's no counter outside of full cheating exploit, then something is wrong that needs to be fixed.
It should also be noted, that banning moves and glitches should be rare, and only for things that can be out-right pointed out. For example, what if it's illegal to stall a fight, or to run away for longer then 30seconds? If it's a very useful tactic, people would try to stall for 29 seconds to avoid the ban. (As silly as it sounds) But what if someone isn't stalling, but their strategy just takes 31 seconds to implement? This is why most competitive games will not have a full out-right ban.
In this case though, the ban is justified for something that can be pointed out.
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fun with xbox
I send out random serial numbers and get people banned.
I'm working on a way to cycle through thousands of codes to see if I can get MS to ban as many innocent people as I can.
THE REALLY FUNNY PART IS I never even owned an Xbox until this happened.
I GUESS I have to do something with my EE degree while I'm unemployed.
I'm entering my (fake your Xbox ID) hack in next years DEFCON.
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So its more like other people playing the game that's banning glitchers than it is Microsoft.
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Re: ARE YOU KIDDING !!!!!!
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Re: LMAO >>>>> LIAR
YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE NO REAL KNOWLEDGE OF ANYTHING YOU SPEAK OF. YES PEOPLE DO MOD THEIR XBOX TO CHEAT.... LMAO YOU CANNOT HOWEVER DO IT TO THE NEW XBOX SLIM AS IT WILL SEND A SIGNAL TO MICROSOFT AND THEY WILL; BAN THE MAC ID OF THAT MODDED XBOX FOR LIFE OFF OF XBOX LIVE !!! YOUR IGNORANCE IS TOTALLY EPIC !!!! HAHAHAHAHA WERE YOU BORN THIS STUPID OR DID IT TAKE YEARS OF DEDICATION ???
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Re: Re: ANOTHER DIM LIGHT
HERE IS A GREAT ANSWER FOR A RETARD LIKE YOU..... BECAUSE SPAWN KILLS ARE JUST THAT..... YOU COMMIT SUICIDE THEN RESPAWN ON A BLINKING FLAG..... THAT IS CALLED FLAG DEFENSE.... STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE GLITCHES YOU LOVE SO MUCH AND OBVIOUSLY ABUSE.... HAHAHAHAH YOUR TOTAL FAILURE IN VALIDATING YOUR CHEATING WAYS IS IN TURN A TOTAL ADMISSION BY YOU THAT YOU IN FACT ARE GOING TO BE ANOTHER BANNED LOSER..... HAHAHAHAH..... I HOPE IT HAPPENS SOON FOR YOU... HAVE A GREAT DAY OK MR. ICAN'TBACKUPMYRANKSOIHAVETOCHEAT..... LOL
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Re: I SO AGREE
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Re: Re: LMAO STUPID PEOPLE AGAIN
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avatar hackers
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