by Shadowman » Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:55 am
- Motto: "May God have mercy on my enemies, because I sure as hell won't."
Many of you know Team Fortress 2, and for those who don't, I guess I have to explain:
Team Fortress 2 is a game made and published by Valve, the company responsible for Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead, and was one of several franchises they bought up that had been based on their work. (Another was Counter-Strike) While gameplay is much like Counter-Strike, each of the nine classes is it's own character, with not just it's own playstyle and weapon sets, but also something of a defined personality. The Pixar-like aesthetic adds to this. Likewise, they have been making "Meet the Team" videos to showcase each character/class, which are noted for their very high quality.
Recently, the developers have begun adding Class Packs, additional weapons for specific classes, for no charge, although when the packs are EVENTUALLY released on 360, they'll be offered for a price. They currently have all but three classes left.
But this is a rant and I'm not getting fired up yet so I should probably start here: The Steam Forum for Team Fortress 2 makes World of Warcraft look like a Mensa meeting.
The first four Class packs featured Milestone achievements. Complete a certain number of achievements, a Milestone unlocks, and with it, one of the class's three new weapons. However, this isn't what the developers intended. With the latest Class Pack, a "random drop" system was implemented, meaning you'd simply need to play to get new items, rather than focusing on achievements which can be very hard to obtain.
The fanbase, of course, met this with outrage. Some people were convinced this made TF2 far too much like an MMO (It didn't) while some demanded items, claiming Valve "owed them" for whatever reason. (They don't) I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for" and, as it turns out, all of the class packs are free. People began "idling" where they would sit in spectator mode, waiting to get new items, often while not at their computer. This led to many servers (Note that most servers are privately owned) implementing a method to kick people out after they remained idle for too long, as they were taking up a slot that could be used by someone who actually wanted to play the game.
As a concession, that class pack (a double-sized pack, for two classes rather than just one) was updated with Milestones. A reasonable, sane man would think this would have ended it. It would be a safe bet that this man never visited the Steam Forums. It was again, somehow, met with outrage. Many people complained this didn't stop idling, and only led to an increase of achievement farms. (Custom servers and maps meant to help people get achievements)
So now you know how bitchy they can get.
But there's a new story. With the last Class update, the developers introduced Hats, purely cosmetic pieces of equipment that had no effect on gameplay, but were just there for fun. Nine hats were introduced, one for each class. With the "classless" update (One with no class focus) they introduced another 18 hats, two for each class, as well as a "hatless" option for classes who's initial design already had a hat or helmet. Hats could only be obtained through the drop system.
As it happens, some people had made a third-party app to cheat the system and get new items. In response (Though a bit late here) Valve removed the hats of anyone who had used this app, (Something like 4.5% of all players) and anyone who didn't was given a "Halo" hat for "moral superiority," as something of a joke. In short, cheaters were punished, non-cheaters were rewarded.
You can see where this is going.
People complained. I don't know how, but people complained wrongdoing on Valve's part. While I was aware of the punishment/reward (I proudly charged into battle as an Angel of Shooting People with Rockets), the complaining wasn't brought to my attention until I saw a news post from Tim Buckley. Upon checking the Steam forums (I really should learn to never ever go there ever), I stumbled upon many people who, again, were claiming they were wrongly punished. Some claimed that it was unfair as they weren't given warning ("I wasn't warned I would be punished for cheating" isn't exactly something that earns sympathy), some made claims that wearing the Halo had gotten them kicked from servers, and people playing Medic were refusing to heal them. Many people are demanding to have their items given back.
This is, in short, batshit insane. The argument the cheaters were using was "We did all that difficult nothing for those items, and we weren't given fair warning that we'd be punished for cheating, so give us back out ill-gotten gains!" This is ridiculous. Cheating in a game with no multiplayer, that's fine, I have no problems there, but in a mutliplayer game, that's where the line is drawn. You should not have to be warned that you'll be punished for cheating, even if they don't do it right away, you're still a cheater.
To make it short: Team Fortress 2 is a really great, fun game. I really recommend it. (For PC, NOT the console port) But if you do, don't ever visit the Steam forums. This has a good chance of ruining a good time.
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