Archive:Bungie With Teeth

Summary
While Bungie is adored by fans as one of the most fan friendly game developers in the world, they violently protect their property and image. Bungie isn't some benevolent sloth. No, it's a wolf... with teeth.

Below are some of it's more controversial episodes.

You have scans? THEN DIE!
In Oct of 2006 subscribers to the Swedish magazine LEVEL got an unexpected gift when they became some of the first people in the world to see screen shots of the new Halo 3 multiplayer game.

Soon scans of the magazine started appearing on the internet and were quickly cropped, translated and used as canon around the world:

Scans? You don't want no stinkin' scans!

 * Posted by Recon Number 54 at 10/27/2006 8:35 AM
 * It has become apparent that the promised gaming magazines are now hitting the stands (or are at least being mailed to subscribers in some areas). They do contain much awaited and long-promised Halo 3 content.
 * A word of advice and another word of warning.


 * These magazines are copyrighted material and are available to their subscribers and people who purchase the magazine. Scanning images, posting those images, scanning or posting transcriptions of the articles is a violation of the magazine's copyright and ownership of the material.


 * Anyone posting scans or text from these magazines will be permanently blacklisted from this site. No other warnings, no appeals, nothing.


 * Members asking (or begging, or encouraging) scans to be posted, IM'ed or PM'ed will likewise be blacklisted for at least a week. If we are advised to increase that penalty, we gladly will.


 * Bungie.Net cannot and will not be a part of people intentionally violating copyright and ownership laws. Anyone who uses this site for that purpose is not a friend nor a fan of Bungie or this community.


 * Thanks for your time.


 * Slight Edit; Please bear in mind... having any links to released photos/scans in your signature will warrant a permanent blacklisting as well.

Cheating
A common complaint regarding Halo's online play has been the widespread Cheating which occurred almost immediately upon the game's release. Users exploited bugs in the game and vulnerabilities of the network to win ranked games and thus increase their matchmaking rank. Many players became frustrated and started demanding that Bungie create a solution to the widespread cheating.

First Update
In response to these complaints on Monday, April 18th, 2005, Bungie released a mandatory patch named the automatic update or AU for Halo 2. The patch fixed many of the various bugs and cheats in the game, slimmed down split-screen HUD information, and rebalanced various weapons to promote use of single-wield weapons, grenades, and melee attacks. For example, the melee attacks and grenades are now far more powerful and the battle rifle is now more accurate. Bungie maintains a full list of changes. This brings Halo 2 up to Version 1.1.

Update Two - Banhammer
Another update was added in July, 2005 (a week or so after the release of the map pack). The update added a detection tool that would automatically detect and ban 'modders' using modified content on their Xboxes. Modified versions of the downloadable maps would allow people to use cheats such as 'autoaim' and 'automatic reload' during matches on Xbox Live. Any players who are detected using modified content would be automatically banned from Matchmaking on Xbox Live within around six hours. Bungie has banned thousands of players and is working to clean up the rest, earning in the process the moniker 'Banhammer.' Several sites offer a list of cheaters and hackers.

The update also fixes a teleporter glitch on the map, Relic. The players who use 'modded' content to have an unfair advantage over other players now resort to using 2-month free trial accounts to cheat on Xbox Live. Many players hold their rank (or level) in high regard, and these people will give 'modders' 2-month free trial cards so their rank can be 'boosted' up from winning unfairly. Anyone who knowingly and willingly plays with 'modders' will be banned from Matchmaking.

Inevitably some cheats and exploits remain. As users typically aim to increase their matchmaking rank by using these, some users avoid these by not entering games with particularly high-level players.

The Halo 3 Beta Leak
In April of 2007, during Bungie's Friends and Family beta test, gameplay footage from a Halo 3 multiplayer beta build showed up on the internet. The video contained footage of the pregame lobby, and multiplayer match on a new map called Last Resort (a remake of Zanzibar, a Halo 2 map.) Almost immediately, the Bungie.net forums were in an uproar with link requests via private messages, and subsequently banned for their actions. To combat this, a Forum Ninja created a sticky containing the following.


 * Posted by Pezza at :04/24/2007 12:22 AM PDT


 * Discuss the Zanzibar information in this thread ONLY.


 * ANYONE asking or offering for links to the footage via PM or otherwise will be banned on sight.


 * I deleted the large thread because it was full of link requests, I have blacklisted :over twenty people today for requesting or posting the links to the footage, don't :make the body count any higher.


 * Discuss in this thread.

The individual who leaked the video is presumed to be kicked out of the beta test.

The death of HaloGen for Command and Conquer
Recently, Bungie forced modders of the popular RTS game series Command and Conquer to cease work on a mod named HaloGen, which was to be released for the 'Command and Conquer, Generals: Zero Hour' game; the mod had been worked on for over three years. A news report on GameSpot noted that Microsoft and Bungie shut the mod down, and said it was because of the new Halo-Wars video game on X-Box 360. Whether or not this was validated is disputable, though, since Halo-Wars is unique to X-Box 360 whereas HaloGen was a modification for a PC game.

Halo 3 Epsilon Streaming Video Leak
On September 2nd, 2007 a link surfaced on the Bungie.net forums,which contained live streaming video footage of a Tsavo Highway saved film, numerous Forged maps, and another glimpse into the Halo 3 Matchmaking system. This video feed lasted several hours until the Gamertag in question (Snprslick) was banned for a week.