Question on banned consoles

[STILRZBOY]

I am thinking of getting my daughter her own console and Gears 3 game so she will leave mine alone. My question is if I get her a refurbished console from Gamestop that was banned because of the previous owner, will she be banned or will it be safe for her to use. Thanks for any info.

[LambentHammerburst]

She's at risk of it as Gamestop doesn't test for game specific bans - impossible to as it can take a couple days for it to be re-banned.

However I honestly wouldn't worry that much about it considering the chances of you actually getting a console that was banned is next to nothing. Especially if you buy a refurb model from them. Those consoles haven't been used in a LONG time usually (a few months - sent in, tested, refurbished, tested, sent out when store makes order).

[STILRZBOY]

Thanks Lambent....also didn't think about it before posting, but I'm pretty sure they would do an exchange if I did get a banned console.

[LambentHammerburst]

Thanks Lambent....also didn't think about it before posting, but I'm pretty sure they would do an exchange if I did get a banned console.

Oh more than likely. Considering it isn't something they test for - it isn't the customer that's at fault if they bought a console that's banned from a game.
Something you could always ask the manager on duty about.

[STILRZBOY]

Yeah, that'll probably be the first thing I ask.

[Bloomy]

There is still a potential issue with Gamertags. If you buy a used console that's been banned and she uses her Gamertag on it, Epic's banning system will then ban her Gamertag. That ban will then carry over to any console her Gamertag is used on, including yours, which would then carry over to your Gamertag. Bit of a hole in Epic's viral ban approach.

Makes me wonder why Epic doesn't just get Microsoft to ban consoles for things like modding, which are against the XBL TOU anyway. Then Gamestop wouldn't take it if someone tried to sell it to them. Idle public boosting might not be a bannable offense by XBL, which could potentially keep the game ban hole open, though it could be taken care of if the idle public ban was a couple months vs. permanent.

[LambentHammerburst]

When Epic bans someone - they usually do also send a report. Many who were banned from GoW3 got a 2 week suspension from XBL. Oddly enough you get a permanent ban if you mod your avatars skin color - but modding a game is a 2 week ban (first offenses on both).

[STILRZBOY]

I think I might just wait a couple extra months and buy her a new one just to be safe. Again, thanks Lambent and Bloomy for the info.

[Dzydvl]

It's too bad they spend more time focusing on people who mod, or those complaining about weapons(except their pride and joy gnasher) instead of addressing actual game issues. It's not like modded really cause them mix interns of money, but add up all the complaints about losing rank and so on, I'm sure there are a few dollars there. Btw spare me the it's their product speech, I'm a programmer too, it's part of the business. People take code and tweak code, get over it. I'm sure this will earn me some sort of ban, but I'm sick and tired of the same few people coming on here regurgitating the same tired lines about bans. Deal with it, I would be honored if someone took some code I wrote and tweaked it for their liking. It's too bad the developers no longer see it that way......

[LambentHammerburst]

They don't spend any time focusing on people who mod. They have a automated system that catches players and adds them to a list. Joe Graf just simply executes the list and applies a ban wave when they do a server restart/update.
Hardly any time is spent on it and it's only ONE person who does it -- and he doesn't do weapon balances or anything. Peter and Quinn do the weapon balances/changes.
So not to sure what you're trying to get at Dzydvl.

[Gnashes]

It's too bad they spend more time focusing on people who mod, or those complaining about weapons(except their pride and joy gnasher) instead of addressing actual game issues. It's not like modded really cause them mix interns of money, but add up all the complaints about losing rank and so on, I'm sure there are a few dollars there. Btw spare me the it's their product speech, I'm a programmer too, it's part of the business. People take code and tweak code, get over it. I'm sure this will earn me some sort of ban, but I'm sick and tired of the same few people coming on here regurgitating the same tired lines about bans. Deal with it, I would be honored if someone took some code I wrote and tweaked it for their liking. It's too bad the developers no longer see it that way......

See the following:

They don't spend any time focusing on people who mod. They have a automated system that catches players and adds them to a list. Joe Graf just simply executes the list and applies a ban wave when they do a server restart/update.
Hardly any time is spent on it and it's only ONE person who does it -- and he doesn't do weapon balances or anything. Peter and Quinn do the weapon balances/changes.
So not to sure what you're trying to get at Dzydvl.

The people who work on Multiplayer have absolutely nothing to do with bans...

So what exactly are you meaning?