Bungie bans Halo: Reach AFK exploiters

By Robert Purchese Published 26 May, 2011

Firefight is my idle.

Bungie has banned "several dozen" Halo: Reach players who "habitually" idle or exhibit "AFK behaviour" (go away from their console) while playing Firefight Matchmaking.

Those in the firing line are invited to contest the credit reset. But doing so needlessly could land you a credit ban.

"So far we have issued extended credit bans for several dozen accounts," wrote Bungie "Fungineer" Jeremiah on the game's forum. "We are continuing to look for false positives but so far no one has been reset and banned without sufficient cause.

"It's clear that even players who know they're deserving of this ban are going to request an investigation, which could end up delaying the investigation of a player who is honestly unaware of why they were reset and banned."

"I ask that you please remain patient while we continue to review disputes and we will notify players individually if we require any additional information from them."

Firefight is a wave-based multiplayer mode for Halo: Reach, in which players fend off increasingly tricksy hordes of Covenant baddies. The video below shows Eurogamer attempting this alone, without any real trace of skill.

Halo: Reach Firefight.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (15) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • asphaltcowboy #1 1 year ago

    Why would that warrant a credit reset? I'm not sure I quite understand! :/

  • Gambit1977 #2 1 year ago

    I'm assuming it's because they're not playing the game but accumulating the points for the wins?

  • mickey2002 #3 1 year ago

    Leaving their console on while on firefight MM so earn credits.

  • AcidSnake #4 1 year ago

    I haven't played this, but do you get points just for staying in matchmaking?...Surely an auto-boot in case of inactivity would be better?

  • kinky_mong #5 1 year ago

    I agree with penalising people who habitually ruin other people's games by being AFK leaving their team a man down, however this some what heavy handed approach will turn some people off the game completely, and the player numbers have been dwindling in the last few months.

    Shooting themselves in the foot I think.
    Edited by kinky_mong at 26/05/11 @ 15:17

  • Burnt-Kona Verified Senior Artist, Full Fat Productions #6 1 year ago

    Finally. Although it's been a while since I played Reach, going to play Fire Fight in matchmaking would always turn up one or two AFK players who would kill a couple of enemies so their score wasn't zero to hide from the banhammer, then sit there.

    To add insult to injury, the AFK players would often vote for a crappy map/gametype as well.

    All so they can have a different bit of armour.

  • coolbritannia #7 1 year ago

    kinky_mong, that's the point. if they're AFK, we don't want them in the game.

  • aldogray #8 1 year ago

    "I agree with penalising people who habitually ruin other people's games by being AFK leaving their team a man down, however this some what heavy handed approach will turn some people off the game completely, and the player numbers have been dwindling in the last few months.

    Shooting themselves in the foot I think."

    I don't see why it would turm anyone other than the cheats away which is a good thing surely?! I don't play Halo online but the fact that Bungie are actively doing something to get the idiots offline should be aplauded. I for one will now consider playing Halo online. So that's one extra player :)

  • RelaxedMikki #9 1 year ago

    I reckon Bungie deserve respect for their continued support of Reach.

    I was offline for a month and when I came back I found there were a whole bunch of new maps put into the Slayer matchmaking for free. Which was nice. Plus the continued rotations of the playlists etc.

    It's just a shame they couldn't have put the new free maps in earlier, as I know a lot of people returned to COD once they became over familiar with the pretty limited set of maps the game was stuck with for the first 6 months or so.

  • CaptainQuint #10 1 year ago

    Bungie's online support is outstanding.

  • Romeric #11 1 year ago

    My god, Eurogamer - you suck at firefight! Good work Bungie for sorting out the cheaters.

  • kinky_mong #12 1 year ago

    People seem to have missed my point, if you check the mostly hilarious thread on the Bungie forum where people are appealing their bans you'll see a few cases of people being banned for a minor AFK indescretion that there were already punished for previously.

    Can you honestly say if you were constantly punished for the one time you cheated you wouldn't just say "Fuck this I'll play something else"?

    Bungie are definitely leading the way in supporting their MP games and other developers could learn a lot from them, so it would be a shame for the community to dwindle in such a way.

  • NewbieZilla #13 1 year ago

    Surely it should be AFC, no?

  • FuzzySnuggleDuck #14 1 year ago

    I want to be a 'fungineer'.

  • BlinkeredAxis #15 1 year ago

    I found that the cheaters could be an advantage - when you play with a smaller firefight team, you can get more kills, and therefore more XP. Frankly though, the AFK crowd should still be punished. They're the classic 'win-at -all-costs' losers who would rather mod and cheat rather than learn the game.

    Most games, even Halo:reach, can be mastered with a bit of patience and experimentation. I'm surprised they don't implement an inactivity timer, where you get kicked for doing nothing for 5 minutes or so.