Half-Life Fallout: Team Fortress Item Removal - Half-Life Fallout

I've never actually seen one but I heard it was too small to even notice. Not that big of a deal then.

lilgamefreek, on Sep 4 2009, 04:04 AM, said:

Well it is, so shut up and stop moaning about it, all of you. You're getting rewards for playing a game that, wait for it... you're not playing. Oh yes, that sounds fair to me! You must be an idiot to not see that as cheating a system.

I only play TF2 on occasion, and I have 2 hats, plenty of unlockable weapons. I'm in no rush nor feel the need to cheat to get them, because they don't alter the game that much. I find myself switching between new and original weapons all the time.

People who use an external idler have no excuse or justification what so ever.

Well if you had read my original post on page 3, you would realize I'm in no way defending the ACT of idling. Valve said it was wrong and cheating so I'll accept that. What I'm saying is, the REASON a bunch of people are moaning is because they didn't feel that it was cheating. I didn't say whether this view point was right or wrong (in hindsight it was very wrong), but I am saying that the view point was understandable. Given the circumstances of the last few months, valve's inaction justified the use of idling in a lot of people's minds.

If valve had clearly established the idler as an illegitimate program when it first came out, or if they restricted their punishments to those who continued to idle, I feel they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble and a lot less people would be angry about it while still achieving the desired results.

I'd like to emphasize that I'm not angry about losing my items (or should I say item?). But valve's actions have started a controversy that has split the community in a number of places. Rather than picking sides and telling the other to STFU, I'm looking at how the controversy could have been avoided entirely and criticizing valve for not doing so.

Lets face it, 'splitting the community' isn't a threat. 95% of people who don't idle and 5% who do? Sure that 5% can make a lot of noise, but that's all it is. Everyone else will just carry on having fun with the game.

From a person who does play a lot of TF2 and lurks on several community sites, I think it's safe to say that it does. 95% may not have used the idler, but this includes all the players who just don't play TF2 (which sadly is substantial). The 5% that did idle are among the percentile that are active enough to even care about hats. From what I've seen, while the idlers are still the minority, they represent much more than 5% of the active community. Servers I've played, halos vs. haloless is almost 50/50 though I'll admit some of the haloless are likely people who just think the halo looks stupid and choose not to wear it.

While this isn't going to disintegrate the community, it has been a pretty black eye. There are a bunch of servers popping up that actively ban people with halo-ed or halo-less people. There are steam groups like "Healers against Halos" that are actively prejudiced against certain individuals. While all of this is stupid, immature, and superficial, it doesn't change the fact that it is happening and it is harmful.

Sadly, I feel this is one of the things that isn't valve's fault. I for one thought the halos were a cool idea. It's just sadly, theirs enough anger from the idler crowd and enough sense-of-superiority from the non-idler crowd that it produces a caustic mixture that precipitates into the ridiculous things I stated above. If valve hadn't made a way to distinguish between cheaters and non-cheaters, it would have been the best, though I really don't blame them for it. It was a cool idea that some people took the wrong way.

But yeah, all the idlers bitching about losing their items isn't going to split the community, because they are obviously in the wrong. It's the halos that are posing that threat.

edit: I just read pie21's post, and I think he has it right most of all. I still feel valve kinda screwed up in that they could have avoided all of this controversy, but all the players freaking out about this have lost sight of what tf2 is about. Blowing ******* up while helping your team. Did these past events really affect that?

The halo does look stupid and shouldn't be worn. Also, I play lots of TF2 and I think it's retarded to think that the idlers make up for such a huge part of the active TF2-community. I'm part of the active community, yet I don't need those hats so badly, that I would go around using some lame idler-program.





I finally got my first hat yesterday, the Pyro-chicken-glove-hat. Honesty ftw!

Nice find, though it's not the hat I look forward to the most. It's a bit, shall I say.... respectless? :p

I still don't have any hats at all... (except for the halo one though) I thought you were also able to pick up hats that were worn by enemy players that you've killed, but so far nothing happend when I walked over all the hats that I've seen lying around.

Sonic Boom928, on Sep 2 2009, 06:55 PM, said:

As much as I love you sonic, your utterly and completely wrong and baseless in your actions.
Hats = INTENDED TO BE reward for playing.
Idling = not playing, and getting a reward, against the intents of Valve. They don't want to reward people who install a program, they want to reward people who truly love their game and play it tons. If you deserve the reward, you would simply get it by playing normally.

Shoota, on Sep 6 2009, 06:09 AM, said:

That's true, and also something Mune very accurately pointed out at TF2S, Valve also don't want anyone using any external applications for hats or anything else. These programs have to potential to really mess things up. The fact that people lost items and sometimes hats was pretty incidental in this case - it was really more about cracking down on external applications.

Pie21, on Sep 5 2009, 06:25 AM, said:

Classy responses all around.

EDIT
From your article, Pie:

"TF2 is still the best damn FPS on the planet."

O RLY? I'm not disagreeing with that, but it is a ballsy statement.

DBL EDIT
Just got back in the game and want to double-check something: all my unlocked weapons that I have earned (legit) are gone.

Did Valve do anything with unlocked weapons that I am missing?

screechingringer, on Sep 6 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

I shouldn't have to say that first of all, that's my opinion

Secondly I'm allowed to exaggerate because it's a TF2 site. And I'm doubly allowed to exaggerate because it's my TF2 site . That said, in my opinion, it's a true statement. Just look at what it is and what it's come from.

screechingringer, on Sep 5 2009, 10:47 PM, said:

I also forgot to mention that Valve removed legitly earned weapons, and also gave some idlers halos. They can't do it right.

Quote

- Sauce

It's a L4D2 interview, but I enjoyed that paragraph

HAHAHAHAHA

so true