Valve punishes third party idlers

[Killer_Man_]

I saw this on VGcats.

http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=2787

Apparently they made a drop system for 'hats' that gives you a cosmetic type of look. Regardless, then shortly after this thread was made.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=954948

And near the head this was posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svC_yqKPKds&feature=related

I rofl at it, they should know that using third party things(Regardless if it was made by 'valve tools' or anything. It's still against the rules) will not go unnoticed. Much like when people were using some sort of third party tool for 'achievement unlock.'

Regardless I find it all roflcopter really.

Plus it is always fun to look at the PMSing pre-teens about games and crap.

[llama_egg]

Oooold news, but yes, much like the weapon system (which is another reason they where using an idling system), the hats where basically random drops when you where playing. Apparently, what, 5% of players where using it, so the other 95% got a fancy new halo for a hat.

[deathofcheese]

Once again, you fail to explain what it is your thread is about by only linking us to where we can go to find the info. I saw this on CAD/VGCats as well, so I'll summarize what happened.

Valve released a content patch for TF2 that included a hat system that gives your character a hat to wear, the selection of which is completely random. The hat did absolutely nothing, except add some character to your character. Although Valve promised a trading system for people who have collected a bunch of hats, they didn't include it with the original patch, so some enterprising hackers (hacker being used in the hobby meaning here) realized that you can just go and sit in an idle server until you get the hat you want. Well, this was fine and dandy, but it still wasn't enough. Someone came up with a third party tool that streamlines this idling that would only work on servers he set up. Now, all idlers were largely confined to just three servers, to keep idler traffic down, and people were able to get what they want in even less time with even less effort.

Valve discovered this and decided that it wasn't in the spirit of the game (plus, it was really fucking cheap, and probably violated their ToS), so they banned the accounts of all people who used the idling tool even once, as well as took hats away from many people who idled manually. Needless to say, this didn't go down so well. A lot of people BAWWWWW'd about this, and now there's a huge rift in the community about the "fairness" of Valve's decision, and whether or not the idlers had a right to do it (as "paying customers", even though once you buy the game, you can play it so long as there's a server up) versus Valve having the right to do what they did.

Honestly, I think the people that did it deserved what they got. Outright banning is kinda pretty heavy-handed, especially when it's only a cosmetic change, but I think this tactic was also applied to some new weapons that were released with the patch as well (not having played in a long time, I don't know about these; I only know about the so-called "hatgate" controversy because a lot of people are talking about it), plus, if it's a violation of Valve's Terms of Service, then damn right they had the right to ban people they thought were exploiting the system.

[Killer_Man_]

Once again, you fail to explain what it is your thread is about by only linking us to where we can go to find the info. I saw this on CAD/VGCats as well, so I'll summarize what happened.


Not really and besides, I was kinda buzzed so get off my case.

Besides the fact that you can just look at the link and not be lazy. -.-;

I don't think anyone got 'banned' for using the third party, now you can but before you couldn't.

[llama_egg]

Too the best of my knowledge no one did get banned, only everything earned taken away. Saying that though valve was in the right to do so for the use of said program being against TOS

[Killer_Man_]

I just find it funny on how much people are pushing it, but even then. I always felt the achievement maps + idle servers/maps are pathetic. Just play the stupid game.

Actually, to be honest, the whole item system is stupid. I can understand achivements and I can understand maybe cosmetic weapons/hats/crap but really, I mostly stopped due to the 'items'. The only one worth while IMO is the axetinquisher(sp?) and buttsluger(the medic gun that heals as you shoot).

[llama_egg]

The only one worth while...

Seriously?

The scouts unlockable's are amazing, the sniper's urine is 100% worth dropping your second gun for, the heavy's boxing gloves and sandwich are good, pyro's back burner is decent if you can get behind people easily enough, the second medic heal gun which increases crit by 100% on ubercharge is down right OP, not to mention that the Cloak and Dagger watch for spies is an amazing upgrade over the original watch.

The only things which are iffy are the heavy's nikita (spelling?) due to doing less damage, the snipers anti-backstab shield, and honestly, not much else comes to mind.

[Arainach]

I thought TF2 was a pretty good game before they started adding all this item BS. Oh well, there's one less chance of me regaining my love of PC FPSes. HL2 Episode 3 may be my last.

[Killer_Man_]

Seriously?

The scouts unlockable's are amazing, the sniper's urine is 100% worth dropping your second gun for, the heavy's boxing gloves and sandwich are good, pyro's back burner is decent if you can get behind people easily enough, the second medic heal gun which increases crit by 100% on ubercharge is down right OP, not to mention that the Cloak and Dagger watch for spies is an amazing upgrade over the original watch.

The only things which are iffy are the heavy's nikita (spelling?) due to doing less damage, the snipers anti-backstab shield, and honestly, not much else comes to mind.

Nikita is only good for people who are running away or to keep people from getting behind you.

The second heal gun is OP but I refuse to use it cause what is the point of 100% crit if you can't get to the people/sentry you are trying to kill.

As Ary as stated, I really didn't care for them and I don't care right now.

Though the Sandvich does help as far as a Heavy goes.

[llama_egg]

Not liking them doesn't make them bad, and as I said, the Nikita is one of the only iffy unlockables I've seen so far. I personally loved it when they started with the unlockable weapons; but to each his own.

[Killer_Man_]

There was no reason to break the game over it.

The game was just fine before all the items.

[Arainach]

The items, to me, reward those who play a lot and make it tougher (and less enjoyable) to those who only play occasionally. Maybe that's the kind of fan base they want to cultivate, but it's not the kind of game I want to play.

[Killer_Man_]

The time drops aren't a problem to me, it's the achievements. Unless they changed it now that things just 'drop' now instead of doing the achievements.

[llama_egg]

They changed it to the same way you get hat's, they are just random "drops" that happens when you die.

Sadly, the broken part of this system is that you will find duplicates, this is because Valve want's to implement item trading, which in itself, is a damn good idea, but I have, what now? 3 Huntsman and 3 Backburners, as well as a few other duplicates sitting around, and we can't trade yet.

here was no reason to break the game over it.
While I understand that not everyone likes the system, the game is far from broken.

[Killer_Man_]

Meh, I'd rather just have 'cosmetic upgrades' than really anything else.

And the trading system sounds ok but at the same time kinda silly.

[Arainach]

Meh, I'd rather just have 'cosmetic upgrades' than really anything else.This. Give them magical trophies or fun hats to put on their head. But when these items start giving real in-game advantages, it means that a new person starting is at a measurable disadvantage to everyone around him. This reduces fun and is not a way to encourage growth of a lively game-playing base.

[Killer_Man_]

Yeah especially those who would cheat and use 'achievement' servers. I actually earned all my equips.

[Killer_Man_]

This. Give them magical trophies or fun hats to put on their head. But when these items start giving real in-game advantages, it means that a new person starting is at a measurable disadvantage to everyone around him. This reduces fun and is not a way to encourage growth of a lively game-playing base.

Sorry to necro but I saw this post and I had to say something.

I just got back into TF2 again cause of friends. I've been mostly playing sniper/medic. The items tend to drop at a good rate unless I'm just extremely lucky. It's mostly been weapons first, then hats.(Items for the class mostly unless you have them all for said class.)

I enjoy the old achievement system to get items because it challenged me every map to do what I had to do to clear the objective but it seems they removed it because of 'achievement' servers.

But yeah.