Halo: Reach quitters to be "penalised"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 2 August, 2010

You have been warned.

Bungie has warned budding Halo: Reach quitters that it intends to punish them for their transgressions.

The developer has drummed up new ways to boot out those who leave games early so upcoming FPS Halo: Reach will be free from their horrible griefing ways.

"I think one of the new things people will be excited about too, is how we're going to be able to penalise people who are habitually quitting out of games, which isn't exactly cheating, but it creates a really negative experience for everybody else in the game," explained Bungie's community director Brian Jarrard to X360A.

"We actually have new tools now to detect that and eventually, people who do this habitually will actually be penalised.

"We want to be able to remove them from the population so they can't make everyone else keep having a bad time."

Eurogamer spoke to Jarrard and campaign designer Niles Sanky recently and discovered all sorts of interesting gubbins about Bungie's final Halo game.

We also went hands-on and saw the opening level of the campaign.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (42) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • Dogzilla #1 2 years ago

    Another step in the social cowardice that is online gaming

  • Bibbo #2 2 years ago

    Brilliant, what a great idea. But, we'll lose about 80% of the Halo population. Because they're quit-whores.

  • nickthegun #3 2 years ago

    Surely playing with a good 20% is better than playing with a twatty 100%?

  • kentmonkey #4 2 years ago

    Hear that EA. Do you hear that? 'Oh but there's no way we can do anything about people that quit out of matches as soon as you score'. Grrrr.

  • daz_john_smith #5 2 years ago

    I hope it works better than in the beta. My router reset itself a few time and it would ban me from matchmaking for a while; I don't know the exact amount of time because I usually stopped playing for a few hours or for the day when that happened.

  • altitude2k #6 2 years ago

    @nickthegun

    The idea is that you'll be less likely to encounter the sort that are persistent quitters in MM rather than being stuck with them.

  • randompanda #7 2 years ago

    Matching quitters up with other quitters.

    Problem solved!

  • andywilkie35 #8 2 years ago

    This is good news - I'm fairly turd at games online but I never quit as I don't like cheating the other person out of their win.

  • chrisjm #9 2 years ago

    good.
    but lets hope it does something clever and detects lag as i had a game the other day where 7 people quit as it was unplayable.

  • CaptainQuint #10 2 years ago

    Quitters should be tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

  • I\'mListening #11 2 years ago

    And when I lose my connection, what then? Also, I should imagine there will be map-specific achievements, again with no option to select the map you need to play on? THAT is why I quit, not because I am losing.

  • Yossarian #12 2 years ago

    As daz john smith pointed out, this was in the beta. Here's the relevant explanation from a BWU a few months back:

    As we speak, the Banhammer is watching, amassing data about who's been quitting, the manner in which they have quit, and who suffered as a result of that quit. Numbers are feeding into complex heuristics and deep databases, and somewhere in the middle of it, our very own disembodied soul howls for revenge.

    "Swing Banhammer, swing!" you cry out. Well, problem is, this is a Beta and we don't want the Banhammer swinging wildly until we know for sure that the numbers coming in are correct, and that the Beta itself is stable and not disconnecting people (creating the illusion of quitting.) Currently, we are only logging data for future action.

    So what do we have in store for when it goes live next week? Let me pull back the curtain just a bit:

    For starters, our Banhammer is getting more data than even Halo 3 produced, which is going to let us dial it in and more aggressively deal with habitual quitters. The real jerks are going to run into this, and then you're not going to see them online anymore. It'll be great.

    Second, quitting a game will forfeit any credits you may have earned for that game. In fact, it may even cost you some credits. We're waiting to see how effective the Banhammer is before deciding exactly how much.

    Lastly, and all new for Reach, we have a new type of ban called a Quitter Ban. This is a relatively soft ban, so we will be using it quite aggressively, activating after only a handful of quits and lasting a rather long time. What does it do? A player with a Quitter Ban will be temporarily unable to re-enter Matchmaking for 15-30 minutes following any further quits.

    Oh, and we're playing around with some gametypes which end early (think "Sudden Death";) when most of a team quits out, so that you don't need to play 8v1 Slayer to 100 (aka. "Hide and Seek".) You may see some of these in Matchmaking if we're unhappy with the other countermeasures.

    As custodians of the online experience, we will be monitoring and adjusting out countermeasures as necessary to keep things ticking along nicely, without games being marred by habitual flakes who quit when they don't get the Sniper Rifle first. So in the meantime, enjoy the Beta!

    And quit quitting, because we are watching, and it is going into your personal Banhammer dossier.

  • Yossarian #13 2 years ago

    And, the following week:

    We talked about it last week, but talk is cheap. Quit Probation and Penalties are now being meted out in the Beta, much to the chagrin of people who apparently keep lengthy lists of legitimate reasons to quit that simultaneously weren’t legit enough to last more than 15 minutes. Yeah.

    Anyway, last week we called the punitive actions for quitting a multitude of games a Quit Ban. Today, we’re revising the nomenclature to more suitably describe what’s really going on. Because we’re fickle like that.

    Quit too many games and we’ll put you on a week long “probation.” Consider that a warning, not a ban. If you quit another game during your probationary period, however, you’ll be required to sit out of Matchmaking for fifteen whole entire minutes.

    If you had a legitimate reason to step away, likely this won’t be seen as a severe punishment. One might imagine you may not even notice. You’ll be legitimately away doing something legitimately important while your fifteen stinkin’ minutes of shame slip away completely unnoticed by anyone.

    Of course, if you’ve just jumped out because you didn’t like the way things were working out in a CTF match, making those very same things that weren’t working out work out way worse for everyone else, you’ll probably feel every minute of the timeout as you mash the A button in hopes of getting a fresh start. Then you’ll make a post to our feedback forums to let everybody know that you had an exceedingly legitimate reason to step away. “How dare u, bungee?!” If that’s the position you find yourself in, my advice is to return to the preceding paragraph above. We’ve already got your use case covered.

    If you’re being routinely disconnected from Xbox LIVE and now you’re feeling the pain more than ever, this would be an opportune time to phone up technical support and finally resolve your issues. A solid connection is better for everyone involved. While you’re rooting around, you should check your NAT settings, too. Maybe think about upgrading your firmware.

    All in all, these penalties amount to little more than a brief respite for those that find themselves on probation. 15 minutes for each game you quit. Of course, there’s always Phase Two, but should you happen to find yourself marked as an Extra Special Case, well, let’s just say that you’ve already been warned and you won’t want to be privy to the fine details on this front. Finish your games, please.

  • SuperBas #14 2 years ago

    Hah, idiots. If I want to rage quit, I'll rage quit. If I get punished for it, I'll just take the game back to the shop. Worked for Uncharted 2.

  • Rirekon #15 2 years ago

    Thanks for posting that Yossarian - hilarious and revealing at the same time!

  • SilentNinja92 #16 2 years ago

    thats fine in a game like this. If I remember rightly you can join a game mid session right? So if you loose its never like its not your fault so why quit?

    I dont understand quitting in halo games anyway even if your losing its fairly easy to have fun and get kills, its not the kind of game where a better player will kill you consistantly its too well balanced.

    If a game like battlefield bc2 penalised you for this Id be livid becuase that game puts you into games already half way through, in a desparately hopeless and loosing team. And thats a game where if the team is loosing becuase of snipers and tanks, its impossoble to make it back or have much fun with it. In that situation I say **** you dev Im not joining half done games.

  • CaptainQuint #17 2 years ago

    It's always amusing when people freak out and jump to conclusions over stuff like this. These developers aren't stupid, or nasty - they know exactly who falls into the serial quitter category; if you don't quit every other game you won't be banned, simple as that. Your mum shouting upstairs that dinner is ready? Quit the game, you will be fine. Quit for dinner every night of the week, you will be fine. The kind of people who get banned quit games EXCESSIVELY, meaning more than three times per session. If you behave like that then expect to be penalised.

    As for the dodgy Internet connections, well it's just tough shit - it might feel 'unfair' on you, but you are actually ruining the experience for your team mates whenever your substandard connection drops out. Get it fixed or be banned. Suck it up.

  • Negotiator #18 2 years ago

    Your new name SuperBas, is SuperBastard.

  • photoboy #19 2 years ago

    You mean I can't RAGE QUIT any more? That's it, I'm buying it and then taking it back for a RAGE REFUND.

  • gjgjg #20 2 years ago

    can i punish my isp/xbl servers for cut outs?

  • Muzakjunkie #21 2 years ago

    I like and totally agree with the sentiments of this, but what happens for people like myself (new fathers), that sometimes have to quit due to my daughter needing attention or something else out of my hands?

    Granted they do say habitually, but then my daughter being 10 months old habitually needs my attention.

    If I can avoid quitting I genuinely do, even going so far as to leave myself logged on so I can get a battering, but even then I believe the game quits due to inactivity.

  • RealityCheque #22 2 years ago

    @Muzakjunkie : So don't play when there's nobody else around to help you out, or deal with the consequences you've been pre-warned about. If it's only an occasional problem you won't have an issue, if it's a regular thing then get a babysitter :p

  • geeza2020 #23 2 years ago

    by sending a signal to your xbox, the Halo servers can force the disc drive on your system to open at an incredible speed sending the game disc flying into your face the moment you quit a match.

    That would be cool anyway.

  • metalangel #24 2 years ago

    @muzakjunkie: Just hide somewhere and go deal with it? That's what I do if I need the bathroom/more beer/etc. So long as the game also doesn't time you out for inactivity, you'll be fine.

  • up_the_ante #25 2 years ago

    What about all the people who level down by just leaving their joypads with the A button being pressed? That's even more destructive than a quitter because it leaves a sitting duck (well jumping duck) target for the opposing team
    Edited by 1 at 02/08/10 @ 13:32

  • Yossarian #26 2 years ago

    Halo doesn't dump you for inactivity.

    That said, if you are on my team and are standing still, not playing, I don't like you, and I wish you would not do that.

  • linksdad #27 2 years ago

    Excellent Great Fantastic. Cant think why this or something similar hasnt been incorporated into live.

    How is it that everyone has 5 rep stars on live despite the number of dam quitters out there.

  • VibratingDonkey #28 2 years ago

    Didn't know this was such a big problem. Typically it's only 1vs1 games that suffer from quitting. How peculiar.

    On a related note I tend to quit BC2 games after a quick look at the scoreboard just after I've connected has confirmed that the teams are uneven in some fashion. It is not fun to get bulldozered or thrown into a meat grinder. I play games to have fun. I'll let someone else have that slot.

    Also if there's less than 9 players on each team. You should be able to filter out servers you don't want to play on, but alas, developers think we think options are scary.
    Edited by 1 at 02/08/10 @ 14:25

  • SlackMaster #29 2 years ago

    Now if you can just ban the rest of the immature idiots that use xbox live it'd actually be a place I wouldn't mind going online for a random game.

  • dagas #30 2 years ago

    Sounds great.

  • WinterSnowblind #31 2 years ago

    @Muzakjunkie
    Thanks for at least listing some reasonable excuses for having to leave. Last night on Kotaku I was reading things like "what if I have to go to school!?" and I mean.. matches typically last no longer than 10 minutes, if you're cutting it so close to something more important, I think you deserve to be penalised.

    Reminds me of playing Guild Wars when inevitably 20 minutes into a mission somebody had to go AFK because they desperatly needed a sandwhich. This causes a huge problem for the rest of the team, just as it does in Halo.

    But I wouldn't worry about this too much, they already had a system in place during the beta for punishing rage quitters. I occasionally had a drop in connection and was disconnected and didn't suffer because of it. It's designed to punish people who repeatedly quit from matches because they're losing, not if you legitimately turn it off once or twice because of more important issues or lose your connection.

  • chrisjm #32 2 years ago

    Muzakjunkie, so you wouldnt notice as in the worst case you would not be able to get a new game for 15 minutes - but you'd be busy cleaning poop or something. by the time thats done you can matchmake again so probably wouldnt even notice. but this 15 minutes would be like hell to a non genuine reason quitter who just quits as they are losing and want to find a new match.

    at least thats how i understand what bunjie is saying.
    Edited by 1 at 02/08/10 @ 16:37

  • FuzzyDuck #33 2 years ago

    @SlackMaster

    "Mute All" is your friend !

    Although I don't own an Xbox or play Halo, I'm glad to see Bungie implment such a system as i could well imagine Reach clocking up insane hours hours of XBL playtime and rage quitters certainly do ruin games.

    Ha, I ended up "rage trading" FIFA 10 because of the amount of rage quitting i had to put up with!

  • brod #34 2 years ago

    Good stuff.. quitters waste everyone's time, including their own.

  • Seehuusen #35 2 years ago

    Good idea to blame people instead of yourself.....bravo

    Bungie should enable people to join while a game is ongoing, instead of having a lobby and be locked with these people for the entire match.

    If you have to leave for certain reasons other than rage-quitting, you'll be penalised totally unneccesary, that's bullshit.

  • Yossarian #36 2 years ago

    If you have to leave for certain reasons other than rage-quitting, you'll be penalised totally unneccesary, that's bullshit.

    Only if you show a repeated pattern of quitting behaviour. This isn't a zero tolerance policy by any means, and as they pointed out, if you do have legitimate reasons for repeatedly quitting, the initial 15 minute ban isn't going to be a problem for you.

    Letting people join at any time would be even worse for the quality and integrity of games.

  • Climhazzard #37 2 years ago

    Shame they didnt have this when the multiplayer on Halo was any good.

  • Mekah #38 2 years ago

    I quit constantly in Halo 3 due to being dumped in some game mode I didn't want to play on some map I hated, or the teams became unbalanced and there being no way to join games in progress you either suffer or drop out.

    The whole matchmaking system is garbage and should be tossed out in favor of something like BC2.

  • Yossarian #39 2 years ago

    Durr, the teams became imbalanced because people like you quit. Enjoy your bans.

  • chrisjm #40 2 years ago

    thats what the veto button is for. if your in the minority that ofte you should be doing custom games not ruining it for the team who got lumbered with a quiter.

  • Harmonica #41 2 years ago

    If only more devs gave enough of a toss about their online communities, and were willing to take grief for the sake of making their games more fun.

    I hope that we'll see figures in the months after release showing that the quitters actually rehabilitate their gaming habits.

  • Tinrib72 #42 1 year ago

    In your face quitters! Now if Bungie could do something about gobshites that like to inflict their shrieking for the sake of it on others, especially the snidey fuckwits who plug in the mic after the game has started just so you cant mute them in a hurry.