TF2, Idling, and Valve: A failure on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

I picked up TF2 fairly early, and I have been playing it on and off since. In my mini review of the game under "my games", I had said that I enjoyed the game, but I did not like the direction in which it was going. This direction was how Valve decided to make the class weapon upgrades available through random drops in game instead of exclusively though unlocks. Basically for the first 3 classes, you could only get access to the new weapons through doing x amount of achievements with the said class. I grinded out my medic, pyro and most of my heavy weapons this way. At the time, I did not play these classes much so this was both challenging and fun as I was forced to play a new class.

About 3 months ago, Valve decided that these class exclusive weapons could be obtained by just playing the game and getting random drops. The second I heard this I was upset. Valve had done a wonderful job with the game, and I felt as though it was good as is. This seemed to me to be a dumbing down of the game to appease the casual gamer who wanted a quick benefit and not have to work for an upgrade. I am not a fan of spoon feeding, and this is exactly what it is. What I think pissed me off the most was that anyone who idle enough in a server can get a drop. For a long time that pissed me off as I saw 90% of the people on my friends list using a fake idler program to farm weapons and hats.

When I picked this game up again, I went ahead and said fuck it and got the idler program. Ill be honest- I copped out and didn't want to put in the effort to get some weapons that I really had no intention of using. But I wanted the status symbol. So I went ahead and Idled while I was at work. I got some new weapons I didn't have and I tried a few out. Pretty much each weapon held true to my belief that the default weapons are infinitely better then the new ones. So whatever, thought nothing of it.

Last night, Valve released a statement saying that Idling was cheating, and took all the weapons away from people that were obtained by that method and awarded those who did not idle with a halo hat. This pissed a lot of people off. When I first heard I thought that this was incredibly stupid. Valve incorporated this stupid system, and I saw something like this happening the second it was announced. Valve made this possible, and Valve had many months to iron the issue out but chose to sit idly (a hurr hurr hurr) by and allow it to happen. I felt as though people who got items they actually used should be able to keep those items.

But as I thought on it more, these weapons SHOULD be taken away. While the system was flawed and allowed for this happen, the fact remains that people who idled (including myself, I am as guilty as everyone else) were doing just that: Idling. None of us actually earned these weapons. In fact, most of us weren't even there to see the weapons awarded to us. So why do we deserve them? As I was pondering the situation I likened it to using a bot to farm items in Diablo. People who bot in Diablo aren't generally respected, and really this whole situation is no different.

Overall, the idling chapter of TF2 IS cheating. The people who idled (including myself) exploited a system to gain items that they put in no work for. This is wrong on our parts. We deserved to have our items taken away. Personally, I am completely neutral to losing my items cuz as said, I think they all suck. I am more discouraged that I was dumb enough to use the program. With all that being said, there is still a problem. And that problem is that Valve is just as guilty as we are. This was monster that they themselves created, and they haven't taken any responsibility for it. What I fear will happen is that they won't look at the source of the issue, and see that it was their system that made this all possible. I hope that they can take this as a reason to change a terrible system with gaping holes in it. I want them to be motivated to move forward in a more logical manner, rather then as unintentional as it might have been, rewarding players for not actually playing.

Valve, there is something called the law of unintended consequences; and you are at the mercy of that law. Perhaps Valve can learn from this, and I certainly hope that they do.