I'm pretty sure that this is very fair, and anyone who needs to idle to get this, rather then grab them having fun in-game, is not playing the game to have fun anymore.
Team Fortress 2 Punishing Item Idlers, Rewarding the Rest
- Thread starter Keane Ng
- Start date
It's not the idle servers, it's the third-party programs such as sourceOP dot com fake idlers.Wini said:
I have a friend who lost the Mining Light. Oh. by the way, Zayren, no-one cares. It's obvious why you won't be a game developer.
EDIT: Heehee, glad to have a real spy hat.
I don't see how people had problems spotting others before. Seeing that TF2 was made easy for that sole reason.
I can spot snipers and other classes miles away in an instant. The halo didn't make it any easier than it was before. Because you know, bright red or blue colors on a brown background? Really, it's not hard to miss.
As for Spies, I saw someone being cloaked with halo on my own team and you might only be able to see the glow but only a little bit. It's not like the Halo just stands out. Could someone get a screenshot on how visible it is?
I'm to bored to do it.
I can spot snipers and other classes miles away in an instant. The halo didn't make it any easier than it was before. Because you know, bright red or blue colors on a brown background? Really, it's not hard to miss.
As for Spies, I saw someone being cloaked with halo on my own team and you might only be able to see the glow but only a little bit. It's not like the Halo just stands out. Could someone get a screenshot on how visible it is?
I'm to bored to do it.
first off, sorry for bringing back an old topic from the dead (im bored and lurking the forums). and second, i did NOT use the idler, so the "well your just pissed that you dont have a halo" argument wont work.
anyway, the entire argument is much deeper than just "people used an idling program and got their stuff taken away". its about valves apparent lack of respect for their community and players, an extremely flawed drop system and overall just valves idiocy about the whole situation.
first off, for those saying they dont care about hats, heres what its for: customization of your character to fit each individuals taste/style/whatever and so that there can be some kind of variety between players of the same class. and just because YOU dont care doesent mean that others dont. many in the tf2 community like the hats for that very reason, so they can customize their characters.
in any case, to get to the actual drop system. heres how it works: every 15,430 seconds (or 4 hours, 17 minutes and 10 seconds) you have a 3.5% chance to find a hat, and this does NOT increase over time. to make the post shorter im just going to quote a post from the steam forums
to move on, we'll talk about valves bad (to be nice) handling of the idler situation. between the time that the idler came out and valves reaction to its use they said NOTHING about whether or not it was ok to use it, despite hundreds of threads on the steam forums from users asking whether or not it WAS ok to use it, and likely countless more emails sent to valve staff that went unanswered. have valve simply answered this question once in the several months between these times when users were asking about it this whole situation could have been avoided. but they didnt, not once in several months did they say one thing about it. furthermore is the issue of robin walkers comments about idle servers which were also the cause of the confusion.
1. valve apparently didnt care if players used idle servers
2. using either the idler or idle servers means that players will get items at the same rate as if they didnt.
but again, even after this the community continued to ask questions that went completly unanswered by valve.
next we do have the issue of that it is an external program and they are prohibited by the steam subscriber agreement. but read closely:
the problem here is this: whats the difference between using the idler and sitting in an idle server? physically with one your running tf2 and with the other you arent, but practically speaking theres not a difference as people are doing the same thing, their not actually playing tf2 but rather just sitting in a server waiting for item drops. and on that note, what is the difference between doing this and just creating your own server and sitting in it? again, there isnt one.
next comes valve bullshit argument that only 4.5% of tf2 players were affected. first off that statistic includes ALL steam accounts for which tf2 is associated, NOT active players. at times the idler had over 11,000 people signed into it at once, which made up over HALF of the total peak number of players for that day. what this means is that realisticly the percentage of affected players when taking into account active player base, instead of just looking at ALL of the people who own the pc version of tf2, is likely well over 50% of the active player base.
finally, people arent using this because all they care about with tf2 is the hats, they used it (and idle servers) because they enjoy playing tf2 and they like the idea of customization of the classes via the hats, but we're frustrated that after hundreds of hours they we're still hatless. they used to when they didnt feel like playing tf2 just to get the hats, then stopped when they wanted to play tf2.
in any case, the issue people have isnt with the idler, its with valve. months upon months of countless questions and emails by the games active player base as to what valves take on the idler was went unanswered, even in the confusion that arose when it appeared that valve didnt care about idle servers, and a broken and punishing item drop system. the fact is valve didnt act when they should have, and went too far when they DID act. im not saying that people who used the idler shouldnt have some kind of consequences for their actions, but at the same time valve is also partly to blame here as well and that this entire debate is much deeper than "they cheated".
and one more thing, as another testament to the idiocy of the entire situation, the creator of the idler program, drunken_f00l, has a halo.
anyway, the entire argument is much deeper than just "people used an idling program and got their stuff taken away". its about valves apparent lack of respect for their community and players, an extremely flawed drop system and overall just valves idiocy about the whole situation.
first off, for those saying they dont care about hats, heres what its for: customization of your character to fit each individuals taste/style/whatever and so that there can be some kind of variety between players of the same class. and just because YOU dont care doesent mean that others dont. many in the tf2 community like the hats for that very reason, so they can customize their characters.
in any case, to get to the actual drop system. heres how it works: every 15,430 seconds (or 4 hours, 17 minutes and 10 seconds) you have a 3.5% chance to find a hat, and this does NOT increase over time. to make the post shorter im just going to quote a post from the steam forums
the problem here is that half of the players wont get a hat after close to 10 days worth of playing. if you play an hour a day then thats 230 days or 2/3s of a year.
to move on, we'll talk about valves bad (to be nice) handling of the idler situation. between the time that the idler came out and valves reaction to its use they said NOTHING about whether or not it was ok to use it, despite hundreds of threads on the steam forums from users asking whether or not it WAS ok to use it, and likely countless more emails sent to valve staff that went unanswered. have valve simply answered this question once in the several months between these times when users were asking about it this whole situation could have been avoided. but they didnt, not once in several months did they say one thing about it. furthermore is the issue of robin walkers comments about idle servers which were also the cause of the confusion.
from this response many people came to believe that valve didnt care about the players using the idler for several reasons:
1. valve apparently didnt care if players used idle servers
2. using either the idler or idle servers means that players will get items at the same rate as if they didnt.
but again, even after this the community continued to ask questions that went completly unanswered by valve.
next we do have the issue of that it is an external program and they are prohibited by the steam subscriber agreement. but read closely:
this is the phrase thats being referred to. the problem is that the idler DID NOT give players who used it ANY kind of unfair advantage since item drops would occur at the same rate they would if people were actually playing the game.
the problem here is this: whats the difference between using the idler and sitting in an idle server? physically with one your running tf2 and with the other you arent, but practically speaking theres not a difference as people are doing the same thing, their not actually playing tf2 but rather just sitting in a server waiting for item drops. and on that note, what is the difference between doing this and just creating your own server and sitting in it? again, there isnt one.
next comes valve bullshit argument that only 4.5% of tf2 players were affected. first off that statistic includes ALL steam accounts for which tf2 is associated, NOT active players. at times the idler had over 11,000 people signed into it at once, which made up over HALF of the total peak number of players for that day. what this means is that realisticly the percentage of affected players when taking into account active player base, instead of just looking at ALL of the people who own the pc version of tf2, is likely well over 50% of the active player base.
finally, people arent using this because all they care about with tf2 is the hats, they used it (and idle servers) because they enjoy playing tf2 and they like the idea of customization of the classes via the hats, but we're frustrated that after hundreds of hours they we're still hatless. they used to when they didnt feel like playing tf2 just to get the hats, then stopped when they wanted to play tf2.
in any case, the issue people have isnt with the idler, its with valve. months upon months of countless questions and emails by the games active player base as to what valves take on the idler was went unanswered, even in the confusion that arose when it appeared that valve didnt care about idle servers, and a broken and punishing item drop system. the fact is valve didnt act when they should have, and went too far when they DID act. im not saying that people who used the idler shouldnt have some kind of consequences for their actions, but at the same time valve is also partly to blame here as well and that this entire debate is much deeper than "they cheated".
and one more thing, as another testament to the idiocy of the entire situation, the creator of the idler program, drunken_f00l, has a halo.