I know playing a game a good week before it is officially release whilst being connect to live is a good way to get banned, but is if safe to play said game offline and then connect to online when the release date of said game is closer?? What im trying to find out is when are achievements date/time stamped on the XBL server side, when the achievement actually pops or when you connect to XBL and your profile is updated? Usually what is a safe time to start playing a yet unreleased game?.....3 days before hand?, and how does MS know your not a reviewer or games tester if your playing say 7-10 days in advance?
Yes play offline fine, achievements unlocked offline are never time stamped. I would imagine when you re connect to live a log is made of the date / time you synced all your offline achievements, however if you view your profile you will see there is no times tamp on them. As for knowing your not a reviewer, we could speculate they are many ways. First been say for example when Black Ops leaked it was 3+ weeks before it was released. If a couple of 100 people have been playing it online for a few weeks, then all of a sudden 100,000 people are playing it weeks before release then and they know the game has leaked you can make a pretty good guess most of them are not legit players. It could also be a bad backup, they have identified and banned people like this in the past. Maybe people who have first party games also have there console id logged so they know that console has been given a copy of that game to play early. People have played many games early with no consequences at all, others have been profile banned for pre-release play.
I played Skyrim 10 days before release date and I haven't gotten banned. I kinda doubt that they actually ban for that but if you make enough bad burns and keep failing the stealth patch, they can and will ban you.
Its more for RGH use, was just worried that the games would stamp the achievement and then this would show when i log on xbl with the same profile when not in RGH mode
I dont think it happens often, however it has happened in the past: Forza 3, Borderlands early-birds banned News • News • Xbox 360 • Eurogamer.net