To Boost or not to Boost: Beware Roosting Chickens in your home.

I like the image K?

So Bungie has laid out how they treat gamers who Play Halo: Reach (and Halo 3 presumably still) by boosting. Boosting is where you manipulate the game to your advantage to get better game statistics. Usually this is done by creating game play situations where logged in players sit around with their tits in the air doing nothing, waiting to be killed.

Bungie explains their boosting policy as such:

OKAY: Full Party Boosting

Playing with a full group where nobody is idle and everyone is running around getting kills, headshots, sticks, and sweet rejections. Nobody is AFK.

NOT OKAY - Idle Boosting

Getting into a full or partial party with guests or other Gold accounts who are not manned in order to kill AFKs. Also not acceptable is having EVERYONE AFK to attempt to get Credits for time played.

Got it? Good. As always, more nefarious behavior such as network manipulation is right out. The Banhammer catches that kind of behavior in its sleep - and it is always cranky first thing in the morning. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

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What this means is when the Bungie Banhammer comes down (and it will) you will wake up and suddenly you can't pwn noobs no more in the best game ever. Ever. 

But for us honest folks at home, WTF is boosting you might ask? You'll note Bungie used the acromym AFK. This is geek speak for Away From Keyboard. So the point Bungie is making that if you play games with players in the game who's specific purpose is to be the meat in your sandwhich, you run the risk of being banned.

Generally speaking Boosting is the practice of playing a competitive multiplayer xbox game against (or rather with) accomplices, in order to easily gain ranks or achievements which would require significant time or skill to achieve during regular play (it's like how everybody lined up in Halo 3 to get the Achievement with the Spartan laser etc.

Boosting is often considered a form of cheating, because the "boosters" can easily get rewards for kill streaks or achievements which are impossible for all but the most skilled players to earn against regular opponents. This is why we should all hate Call of Duty: Black Ops other than the fact it's not Halo. 

For those who don't boost, I salute you. I still feel bad about getting my first overkill in Halo 3 by dubious means. That guilt was totally erased though by a triumphant shotgun spree in the caves of Snowbound....