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Microsoft Resets Cheaters' Gamerscores

R

Rand al Thor 19

Junior Member
Evander said:
Games have always had cheat codes.

Different people want to play different ways.



I thouroughly oppose anyone cheating in online play (unless it is somehow agreed upon by all player before hand), but cheating in order to gain achievements? Who the hell gives a shit?

I think the thing that bothers me the most about it is that Microsoft is giving it legitimacy. It would be one thing if you could some how redeem your gamer-points for something, but deciding that they should have control over my personal console and the information stored on it is an overstepping of bounds. Blocking people from goin online, or even having gamercards displayed online would have been enough, without changing their personal data.
Click to expand...


Maybe that wanted to do more contests and such having to do with gamerscore but really couldn't because of all the gamerscore cheating. Now, with them resetting people scores maybe they can. I have no problem with it. Get rid of all cheaters is what I say.
 
Reallink

Reallink

Member
Probably already been said, but while this is a great thing and I love it, they need to institute some standards/guidelines for point values Vs. relative difficulty/time investments necessary to unlock them. If they're wanting to get all fair and legit about it, shit like Avatar and most of those stupid sports games should also be purged from the system.
 
R

Rand al Thor 19

Junior Member
Mejilan said:
I'm fine with these measures as long as they don't fuck over legitimate gamers after flagging false positives!
Click to expand...


From the looks of it, MS has only reset the scores of people who hacked achievements. There should be no false positives if they stick to that and only that. Sure they could go after gamesavers and account recovery artists, but then you do run the risk of getting false positives.
 
S

Scopebob Sniperpants

Member
Wait a minute. How does this thing process gamesave/gamerscore stuff?

Shit.

I'll throw hell if my score sets to zero because XBL is retarded. I lost my internet connection for a week so I went to a friends house and signed in on his machine. Forgot to sign back in on my machine later when I got home and continued to play. Why do I have to sign in? I don't have the internet. So, I beat bioshock and mass effect. THEN I jumped back onto XBL later when I got a new provider and signed in, and it reverts my score to pre-Bioshock/MassEffect time. Shit, maybe even pre-crackdown now that I think about it.
Shit.

Anyways, I lost about 3k of gamerscore, so I loaded up bioshock's later levels and just beat them real quick. I already beat it on hard and got the little sisters achievement, I'm not playing that game again to get the little sisters. ON HARD MODE. Especially if I'm going to try to play it again on Hard mode (without Vita Chambers) achievements. You need all of the atom you can get.... plus you need the atom to get the maximum slot achievements.

Bleh. Nevermind. I will throw hell. You'll see.
 
F

FunkyMunkey

Banned
Darunia said:
http://live.xbox.com/en-US/profile/profile.aspx?GamerTag=n0va 360

motto: Lost 145000 gs

he still has the Seriously gamerpic as a consolation prize :lol
Click to expand...

cheat.jpg


cheat2.jpg


cheat3.jpg


ya booooooi
 
S

sruckus

Member
Psychotext said:
No doubt that a bunch of people will come out and say they got their gamerscore reset and weren't cheating...
Click to expand...

Just like they do now in the xbox forums regarding being temp. banned for obscenities when they "never did anything of the sort". Then the head policy guy comes in and pastes exactly what they're motto etc. was and they're gone and proven to be a liar. If anything it will just be more entertainment to find out who these people are.
 
J

Jtrizzy

Member
What kind of nerd would care enough to cheat on a gamer score? Other than Contra, the rewards for that contest are pretty much shit.

* Level 1 (Gamers who have an annual gamerscore between 0-4,999 at time of entry): Game Picture, Dashboard theme, Contra for Xbox LIVE Arcade

* Level 2 (5,000-9,999 annual gamerscore): Level 1 Package, 100 Microsoft Points and a contest T-shirt

* Level 3 (10,000+ annual gamerscore): Level 1 Package, 200 Microsoft Points, contest T-shirt and Fusion Frenzy 2
 
Truespeed

Truespeed

Member
Ranger X said:
lol "reforming" isn't exclusive to criminal. It just means to set yourself straight. Way to read deep into nothing buddy.
Click to expand...

Did I say it was exclusive? No, I just said that cheaters can't be reformed. Why? Because cheaters never ever see wrong in what they do. Capiche, buddy?
 
N

NextGenitals

Banned
But it was my little brother/roommate/guest that did this using my gamertag. Can I appeal?
No. As is outlined in the Terms of Use you are responsible for all activity on your account.
Click to expand...

Somewhere some little brothers/roomates/guests are going to be getting an ass whuppin
 
Y

YYZ

Junior Member
NextGenitals said:
Somewhere some little brothers/roomates/guests are going to be getting an ass whuppin
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw this someday:

"Microsoft blamed for death of 12 year old Timmy who cheated for achievements using his brother's account."
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
I have no particular love for the types of people currently being targeted. But I like to cheat with things occasionally (never tried to inflate my gamerscore). It can be fun sometimes, and isn't playing a game in a way other than what the creators intended the true essence of games (otherwise you're just following a script)? In general, I think this practice leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't think I want to grow to care about gamerscore as much as the cheaters or even the people upset by the cheating. But hey, MS got some cheers out of an angry mob, so that's a plus for them.
 
B

barnacles

Banned
solid2snake said:
yes, MS should bits their dicks off.
Click to expand...

Today in school I learnd that "bits" is a plural noun and not a verb.
I also learned how to conjugate polynomials and that macroevolution is a financial disease.
 
C

C4Lukins

Junior Member
This is pretty awesome, and probably the best way they could go about it. Having a high gamer score does not really do anything for you anyway, so to ban these guys would be pretty harsh and using saved games to cheat is nothing compared to cheating during actual online gameplay. It is a nice balance of justice and not overly penalizing the goofy gamerscore cheaters.
 
C

CorwinB

Member
Evander said:
Games have always had cheat codes.

Different people want to play different ways.
Click to expand...

Actually, most games implementing cheat codes disable Achievements while you are using cheat codes. In case a game does allow you to use a cheat code and still gain Achievements, I don't think MS will start resetting GS for this reason, as the playing field is still even in that case. What MS are targetting right now seems to be :
- exploits using profile recovery on another console in order to boost gamerscore
- packet/save manipulation

I thouroughly oppose anyone cheating in online play (unless it is somehow agreed upon by all player before hand), but cheating in order to gain achievements? Who the hell gives a shit?
Click to expand...

Well, everyone interested in the competitive nature of Achievements gives a shit, I suppose. Frankly, those answers have been littering the thread, and are very counterproductive. If you don't care about Achievements and GS, no problem with that. But accept that there are people who care about that stuff, and found it hard to swallow that cheaters got a free pass on Live.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about it is that Microsoft is giving it legitimacy.
Click to expand...

Gamerscores and friends list are part of the the social/competitive nature of Live, and are :
- one great differentiator for MS in the console race
- part of the reason why a good amount of Xbox players gobble up new software, giving the 360 its unheard of tie ratio, and keeping 3rd party devs on board



It would be one thing if you could some how redeem your gamer-points for something, but deciding that they should have control over my personal console and the information stored on it is an overstepping of bounds. Blocking people from goin online, or even having gamercards displayed online would have been enough, without changing their personal data.
Click to expand...

Actually, you have full control about what is on your personal console, and you can cheat all you want (including hacking Achievements) until the minute you connect it to Live. If you cheated to gain Achievements, feel slighted by the GS reset, I don't think MS will mind if you log out of Live and hack the content of your profile stocked on your Xbox to "restore" your GS. Locally on your console, that is.
 
U

unomas

Banned
Anyone who has 1,000 gamerscore in Condemned 2 has boosted/cheated same thing to me. I see a couple of Gaffers who have 1,000 in that game. I find this whole thing funny, my gamerscore is 17,000 right now and the only games I go for achievements in are games I really enjoy and want to play. Boosting, gamesaving and everything else is just pointless. I hope they keep cracking down on these guys, I think it's funny that anyone would waste so much time doing something so pointless.
 
C

C4Lukins

Junior Member
unomas said:
Anyone who has 1,000 gamerscore in Condemned 2 has boosted/cheated same thing to me. I see a couple of Gaffers who have 1,000 in that game. I find this whole thing funny, my gamerscore is 17,000 right now and the only games I go for achievements in are games I really enjoy and want to play. Boosting, gamesaving and everything else is just pointless. I hope they keep cracking down on these guys, I think it's funny that anyone would waste so much time doing something so pointless.
Click to expand...

Why is that anyone who has 1000 in Condemned 2 has boosted? I am just curios because I have not played the game and am wondering why it would be impossible to get that in a couple of days.
 
U

unomas

Banned
Certain achievements like kill 15 people in an online match without dying or the serial killer achievement where you need to have killed 10 different people who have 1,000 kills online. Most of the people who got those achievements days after the game came out boosted together to get them quicker.
 
E

Evander

"industry expert"
Rand al Thor 19 said:
Maybe that wanted to do more contests and such having to do with gamerscore but really couldn't because of all the gamerscore cheating. Now, with them resetting people scores maybe they can. I have no problem with it. Get rid of all cheaters is what I say.
Click to expand...

If they want me to think that this is all for some greater good, then they should be announcing thatgreater good first.

It's not my job to put a positive spin on their policy announcements for them. That's their PR department's job.

Although, for the record, I do appreciate the semi-autonomy of Major Nelson, since sometimes he seems to eschew the company line a bit, and give a more "here are the facts" take on some of the things going on at XBox. I'd never take his word as objective, of course, but he's a welcome change from PR robots.
 
E

Evander

"industry expert"
CorwinB said:
Actually, most games implementing cheat codes disable Achievements while you are using cheat codes. In case a game does allow you to use a cheat code and still gain Achievements, I don't think MS will start resetting GS for this reason, as the playing field is still even in that case. What MS are targetting right now seems to be :
- exploits using profile recovery on another console in order to boost gamerscore
- packet/save manipulation



Well, everyone interested in the competitive nature of Achievements gives a shit, I suppose. Frankly, those answers have been littering the thread, and are very counterproductive. If you don't care about Achievements and GS, no problem with that. But accept that there are people who care about that stuff, and found it hard to swallow that cheaters got a free pass on Live.



Gamerscores and friends list are part of the the social/competitive nature of Live, and are :
- one great differentiator for MS in the console race
- part of the reason why a good amount of Xbox players gobble up new software, giving the 360 its unheard of tie ratio, and keeping 3rd party devs on board





Actually, you have full control about what is on your personal console, and you can cheat all you want (including hacking Achievements) until the minute you connect it to Live. If you cheated to gain Achievements, feel slighted by the GS reset, I don't think MS will mind if you log out of Live and hack the content of your profile stocked on your Xbox to "restore" your GS. Locally on your console, that is.
Click to expand...

Firstly, I misunderstood the policy at first, thinking that they were resetting achievements as a punishment for folks who cheated in online games.

I brought up cheat codes because I wanted to make the point that not everyone wants to playthe same game in the same way, and I think it's wrong for folks to step forward, and say its "not fair" that some one had an easier time at getting points because they played the game differently (I tendto play all of my games on the easiest difficulty level, because I like to get through them quicker; should I not get the "completion" achievements, since other folks playthroughonhard mode their first time?)

And I NEVER said that I don't care about Achievements, or think that they are stupid. I really enjoy collecting Achievements. What I think is stupid is the whole comparing yourself to other people aspect of it. It would be enough, IMO, to label folks as cheaters, so that other folks who care know not to compare themselves against them, but to remove achievements because other people care is essentially to FORCE folks into the whole dick-waving contest.

And as far as your defense of "they only erase your data if you go online" that is a bullshit answer. I am totally fine withthem choosing to block some one from going on line, but reaching in to their console and deleting data is NOT acceptable. Period. I'm running a PC thatI built myself right now, but my last machine was a Gateway. If Gateway decided to go into my PC anddelete some of my data, they would be ENTIRELY out of bounds. How is this any better.



FInally, I'm not sure if you were using ageneral or direct "you" above, butjust in case you were accusing me of having hacked some of my achievements (and apologies if you weren't)go ahead and check out my gamer score (The Evander). I think it's a respectable level, but if I was hackingachievements, don't you think it'd be higher? If you want to toss around accusations, you ought to have more to go on rather than just assuming "he doesn't like this policy, therefore he must have cheated." I'm against capital punishment too, but I've never commited a capital crime.
 
A

ALeperMessiah

Member
unomas said:
Certain achievements like kill 15 people in an online match without dying or the serial killer achievement where you need to have killed 10 different people who have 1,000 kills online. Most of the people who got those achievements days after the game came out boosted together to get them quicker.
Click to expand...

That's not the kind of cheating they're banning people for. That's boosting. Cheating is using gamesaves, manual recovery of accounts, etc. etc.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
ALeperMessiah said:
That's not the kind of cheating they're banning people for. That's boosting. Cheating is using gamesaves, manual recovery of accounts, etc. etc.
Click to expand...

I was just about to come in and say this.
Hell these days boosting is actually required in order to get the online achievements since...well..nobody plays some games online anymore. Case in point on my bio I've put down that I'm looking for someone to get the Import Tuner Challenge multiplayer achievements with.

Besides, trying to reset the gamerscores of boosters is just going to lead to a false-positive nightmare. How exactly are you going to prove stuff like that?
 
A

ALeperMessiah

Member
PepsimanVsJoe said:
I was just about to come in and say this.
Hell these days boosting is actually required in order to get the online achievements since...well..nobody plays some games online anymore. Case in point on my bio I've put down that I'm looking for someone to get the Import Tuner Challenge multiplayer achievements with.

Besides, trying to reset the gamerscores of boosters is just going to lead to a false-positive nightmare. How exactly are you going to prove stuff like that?
Click to expand...

You can't bust people for boosting, because it's not cheating. If developers didn't want you to join up with people for the purpose of gaining achievements online then they wouldn't let you.
 
E

Evander

"industry expert"
PepsimanVsJoe said:
I was just about to come in and say this.
Hell these days boosting is actually required in order to get the online achievements since...well..nobody plays some games online anymore. Case in point on my bio I've put down that I'm looking for someone to get the Import Tuner Challenge multiplayer achievements with.

Besides, trying to reset the gamerscores of boosters is just going to lead to a false-positive nightmare. How exactly are you going to prove stuff like that?
Click to expand...

This is why I really hate on-line achievements. Any achievement available on-line ought to be available in offline multiplayer as well.
 
C

CorwinB

Member
Evander said:
And as far as your defense of "they only erase your data if you go online" that is a bullshit answer. I am totally fine withthem choosing to block some one from going on line, but reaching in to their console and deleting data is NOT acceptable. Period. I'm running a PC thatI built myself right now, but my last machine was a Gateway. If Gateway decided to go into my PC anddelete some of my data, they would be ENTIRELY out of bounds. How is this any better.
Click to expand...

Actually, your Xbox Live profile is stored on MS servers, what you have on your Xbox is a local cache. In case of profile recovery, for example, the version on the MS servers is the final arbiter.

The Xbox Live Term of Use is pretty explicit on MS having the ability to do whatever they want with your profile.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/legal/?WT.svl=nav

MS doesn't care what you do with local profiles stored on your console. But Xbox Live enabled profiles are not "yours".

FInally, I'm not sure if you were using ageneral or direct "you" above, butjust in case you were accusing me of having hacked some of my achievements (and apologies if you weren't)go ahead and check out my gamer score (The Evander). I think it's a respectable level, but if I was hackingachievements, don't you think it'd be higher? If you want to toss around accusations, you ought to have more to go on rather than just assuming "he doesn't like this policy, therefore he must have cheated." I'm against capital punishment too, but I've never commited a capital crime.
Click to expand...

It was a "general" you, not a specific accusation. Apologies if my tone implied otherwise.
 
D

dammitmattt

Banned
shagg_187 said:
I know this might sound weird but can anyone "define" cheating?
I thought you can't "cheat" gamerscores unless you play through all the games and unlock the achievements.
Click to expand...

Cheating involves downloading game saves, trading accounts with other people who do the work for you, and other more nefarious stuff that I don't even know about.
 
S

ScrabbleBanshee

Member
Of all the things that you can cheat on in life, cheating on a freaking gamerscore has got to be the lamest. What's the point?

Then again, I have to strive to begin to understand the point of the score to begin with so my opinion is coloured.
 
E

Evander

"industry expert"
CorwinB said:
Actually, your Xbox Live profile is stored on MS servers, what you have on your Xbox is a local cache. In case of profile recovery, for example, the version on the MS servers is the final arbiter.

The Xbox Live Term of Use is pretty explicit on MS having the ability to do whatever they want with your profile.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/legal/?WT.svl=nav

MS doesn't care what you do with local profiles stored on your console. But Xbox Live enabled profiles are not "yours".



It was a "general" you, not a specific accusation. Apologies if my tone implied otherwise.
Click to expand...

If you don't go online, your system has more correct information than the servers do. If they want to delete those achievements from the servers, and have them not reflected to other players, like I've said, that's perfectly fine, but deleting them from your own records (even if it's just through syncing with the servers) is BS.

And my profile is indeed mine. I payed for it, after all. My Live access is subject to their decisions, and I recognize that, as it is part of a service, but my profile is used for more than just Live access, so them claiming control over all of it just because I use it online makes me uneasy. I've already been considering cancelling my gold subscription when it comes time to renew it, and these sorts of moves on their part just push me in that direction.
 
C

CorwinB

Member
shagg_187 said:
I know this might sound weird but can anyone "define" cheating?
I thought you can't "cheat" gamerscores unless you play through all the games and unlock the achievements.
Click to expand...

There are various ways of cheating to gain Achievements. Save games trading is one example. There is also the possibility to trick the Xbox servers into believing you unlock more Achievements than you actually do. Basically, when you unlock an Achievement, your console sends a specific packet to the Xbox servers saying that you did, so that your profile can be updated. It is possible to trick the system by sending forged packets to the Xbox servers. I suppose it could also be possible to use something like an Action Replay and grant yourself enough advantages (infinite lives/ammo...) to unlock some extremely hard Achievements.
 
X

xblarcade

Member
Evander said:
If you don't go online, your system has more correct information than the servers do. If they want to delete those achievements from the servers, and have them not reflected to other players, like I've said, that's perfectly fine, but deleting them from your own records (even if it's just through syncing with the servers) is BS.

And my profile is indeed mine. I payed for it, after all. My Live access is subject to their decisions, and I recognize that, as it is part of a service, but my profile is used for more than just Live access, so them claiming control over all of it just because I use it online makes me uneasy. I've already been considering cancelling my gold subscription when it comes time to renew it, and these sorts of moves on their part just push me in that direction.
Click to expand...

wait, your saying that these people who have clearly broken the TOS shouldn't be punished?
 
F

Fantasmo

Member
So my Live account will show I'm a cheater if I decide to download game saves because I don't have the time to sit around for seven thousand billion hours unlocking content? I'm not 5 anymore, I'm in my late twenties, FUCK OFF

I don't even own the hardware to do this but that shit is annoying!
 
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