Team Fortress 2 Idler Program Banned, It's Official

[Markness]

I remember is the good old days of ages past. It was a time before camera beard, pyro beanie, and even the Demo afro. As much as you might find it hard to believe, these days were not the anarchistic state you might believe. In fact, before hats were introduced, you might be amazed to hear, we were fine the way we were!!!!

Hats changed nothing in the game and it does not matter in the slightest if you don't get them right this second. There is very little reason to idle and no reason whatsoever to use some kind of program to do it. Calling valve cunts because they want you to get the hats over time instead of everyone getting them in the first month is ridiculous. There will be no point of a trading system is everybody has all the hats anyway.

If you can't enjoy a game because someone else has a slightly different had model to you, you should spend less time whining about it and insulting the developers who actually care enough to keep adding things in, and more time fixing your own personal god-damn problems.

 

[ThePirateMan]

Captain Milestone should also have been there for hats.. damn the evil random system box must have imprisoned him!

TO THE ACHIEVEMENTMOBILE!

 

[spuddyt]

Enlighten me more, oh great one!

Sure, let's see what we can find.

2a (ii) you must not modify the Steam Installer in any way nor integrate or combine it with another software program;

Except as otherwise permitted under Section 2(C) with regard to the SDK, you may not, in whole or in part, copy, photocopy, reproduce, translate, reverse engineer, derive source code, modify, disassemble, decompile, create derivative works based on, or remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Steam Software or any software accessed via Steam without the prior consent, in writing, of Valve.

You are entitled to use the Steam Software for your own use, but you are not entitled to: (i) sell, grant a security interest in or transfer reproductions of the Steam Software to other parties in any way, nor to rent, lease or license the Steam Software to others without the prior written consent of Valve; (ii) host or provide matchmaking services for the Steam Software or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Valve in any network feature of the Steam Software, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the Steam Software, use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks, without the prior written consent of Valve; or (iii) exploit the Steam Software or any of its parts for any commercial purpose.

Here's the biggy though

5. ONLINE CONDUCT, CHEATING AND ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR

You agree that you will be personally responsible for the use of your Account and for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from use of your Account. Your online conduct and interaction with other subscribers should be guided by common sense and basic etiquette. Specific requirements may also be found in the Steam Online Conduct rules at http://steampowered.com/index.php?area=online_conduct, other Rules of Use, the Subscription Terms, or in terms of use required by third parties who host particular games or other services.

Steam and the Steam Software may include functionality designed to identify software or hardware processes or functionality that may give a player an unfair competitive advantage when playing multiplayer versions of any Steam Software, other Valve products, or modifications thereof ("Cheats"). You agree that you will not create or assist third parties in any way to create Cheats. You agree that you will not directly or indirectly disable, circumvent, or otherwise interfere with the operation of software designed to prevent or report the use of Cheats. You acknowledge and agree that either Valve or any online multiplayer host may refuse to allow you to participate in certain online multiplayer games if you use Cheats in connection with Steam or the Steam Software. Further, you acknowledge and agree that an online multiplayer host may report your use of Cheats to Valve, and Valve may communicate your history of use of Cheats to other online multiplayer hosts for Valve products. Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers. You acknowledge that Valve is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Subscriptions(s) and/or Account, but it may choose to do so.

Now, given they've already said they can banzor you instantly and all they've done is include a piece of code that will warn you against cheating, I really think that there's a little too much crying here.

Can I be the first to say [/thread] ?

 

[SquirrelPants]

Valve are cunts, they built the shitty system and now they're trying to punish people for attempting to get the items they actually want?

agreed. this is just stupid. the random item generator is a piece of shit on a white towel. Valve has kicked themselves in the nuts by removing the Milestone achievements.

Derp derp derp...

Anyway, it's a good thing. All they're doing is trying to make the game fair, and make people actually work for their hats and weapons.

 

[Daezd]

Hello poor, Irish commoners.

I implore you to gaze upon mine head and quake with jealousy at my original Mining Light. Subtle, yet noticeable enough to send the hatless, poor, disgusting Irish commoners like yourselves into a quivering rage.
For I did not chose this glorious piece of headwear, it chose me, during an actual game! For I do not need such trivial things as "Idler programs" or "spectator servers", no, I just need to play!


In all seriousness, I received my hat while offensive engineering and ninja capping the last point on CP Steel. I wore it for the round because I happened to be an Engineer. Come defense time I switched to Medic and teamed up with my Heavy and Soldier buddies. We then went on to wtfpwn the other team, stopping them from taking a single point.

My point? I've got a hat and you assholes don't Hats are pretty flippin schweet for a while, yes, but after said while you forget about it because you're in a first-person game wearing a hat. That you cannot see. Unless you taunt. A LOT.

Just don't worry about the system, play the fucking game and have fun once in a while, and then when Valve updates the game again you can head on over to the Steam Forums and piss and moan and whine and ***** all you want!

Oh, and Valve doesn't owe you a damned thing, you self-righteous jerkoff.

 

[Infiniteloop]

Enlighten me more, oh great one!

Sure, let's see what we can find.

2a (ii) you must not modify the Steam Installer in any way nor integrate or combine it with another software program;

Except as otherwise permitted under Section 2(C) with regard to the SDK, you may not, in whole or in part, copy, photocopy, reproduce, translate, reverse engineer, derive source code, modify, disassemble, decompile, create derivative works based on, or remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Steam Software or any software accessed via Steam without the prior consent, in writing, of Valve.

You are entitled to use the Steam Software for your own use, but you are not entitled to: (i) sell, grant a security interest in or transfer reproductions of the Steam Software to other parties in any way, nor to rent, lease or license the Steam Software to others without the prior written consent of Valve; (ii) host or provide matchmaking services for the Steam Software or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Valve in any network feature of the Steam Software, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the Steam Software, use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks, without the prior written consent of Valve; or (iii) exploit the Steam Software or any of its parts for any commercial purpose.

Here's the biggy though

5. ONLINE CONDUCT, CHEATING AND ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR

You agree that you will be personally responsible for the use of your Account and for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from use of your Account. Your online conduct and interaction with other subscribers should be guided by common sense and basic etiquette. Specific requirements may also be found in the Steam Online Conduct rules at http://steampowered.com/index.php?area=online_conduct, other Rules of Use, the Subscription Terms, or in terms of use required by third parties who host particular games or other services.

Steam and the Steam Software may include functionality designed to identify software or hardware processes or functionality that may give a player an unfair competitive advantage when playing multiplayer versions of any Steam Software, other Valve products, or modifications thereof ("Cheats"). You agree that you will not create or assist third parties in any way to create Cheats. You agree that you will not directly or indirectly disable, circumvent, or otherwise interfere with the operation of software designed to prevent or report the use of Cheats. You acknowledge and agree that either Valve or any online multiplayer host may refuse to allow you to participate in certain online multiplayer games if you use Cheats in connection with Steam or the Steam Software. Further, you acknowledge and agree that an online multiplayer host may report your use of Cheats to Valve, and Valve may communicate your history of use of Cheats to other online multiplayer hosts for Valve products. Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers. You acknowledge that Valve is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Subscriptions(s) and/or Account, but it may choose to do so.

Now, given they've already said they can banzor you instantly and all they've done is include a piece of code that will warn you against cheating, I really think that there's a little too much crying here.

It's not a violation of the ToS since hats are not an unfair competitive advantage. You contradicted yourself.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

It's not a violation of the ToS since hats are not an unfair competitive advantage. You contradicted yourself.

"may give": Legalese for "we decide"

 

[Turtleboy1017]

If you're a regular TF2 player you would have realised that a minor update was released today. As pointed out by some of the guys at the Steam Forums [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=953306], the following was added into the game:

<spoiler=from tf_english.txt>"TF_CheatDetected_Title" "WARNING"

"TF_CheatDetectedMinor" "Your account has been flagged for circumventing the item distribution system. We have removed the items that were illegally obtained.\n\nFuture violations will result in the loss of all your items."

"TF_CheatDetectedMajor" "Your account has been flagged for circumventing the item distribution system. We have removed all items in your inventory.\n\nFuture violations may result in your account being disabled."

It's all speculatory at this stage, but the assumption is that Valve has decided to act upon the large use of the idling program used by many to gain items. There's no direct comment from Valve as yet, but I'd warn everyone using the idling program to hold off on their use of the program until they do.

Thoughts?

Eh, never used any of those things anyway. One of the guys I was playing with got so fed up with our team talking about hats, instead of teamwork, he yelled

"IF YOU WANT A FUCKING HAT GO TO THE HAT STORE!!!"

Everyone shut up after that. It was pretty funny. I personally don't really mind, Valve may not have the best idea for the unlocks, but hey the hats don't ever really DO anything, so...

 

[Infiniteloop]

"may give": Legalese for "we decide"

Yup. Taking that one step further Valve can shut down all their servers for everything, even Steam, if they wanted to--today. It's their product/service, they can do whatever they want.

On a sidenote:
Anyone who likes the drop system is probably sitting on their ass waiting on the postman for their welfare check.

 

[headshotcatcher]

Statistically you should be getting ONE HAT PER APPROX. 400 HOURS OF GAMEPLAY, the chance of getting a hat is either 0.95 or 1.05% (dont know which one) every four to five hours (it seems to be four hours 17 mins and 26 seconds)

If they'd quarter or even halve that amount it would be way more sensible, while remaining rare..

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Valve are cunts, they built the shitty system and now they're trying to punish people for attempting to get the items they actually want?

This. And here I was, thinking that it was normal to so things legitimately. Apparently that's outdated now.

 

[Robby Foxfur]

IT just seems that valve just loves to hate the people that buy their games, it a broken system and needs fixed, kinda like the economy and all the other bad stuff in world, personally I'm excited to see the update where we get to level up our most played classes and cast spells on people while we use high level enchantments to keep our selves from taking any damage at all.
Play TF2 the MMO way, and don't forget the scout can bubble shield and the heavy can stun when he critz

 

[jonnopon3000]

Valve are cunts, they built the shitty system and now they're trying to punish people for attempting to get the items they actually want?

Thou shalt NEVER insult Valve!!!

(Valve fanboy present)

 

[FluffX]

Valve are cunts, they built the shitty system and now they're trying to punish people for attempting to get the items they actually want?

agreed. this is just stupid. the random item generator is a piece of shit on a white towel. Valve has kicked themselves in the nuts by removing the Milestone achievements. before the generator came in, i just went to an achievement server and got all the items. now, i have to waste time just playing and playing hoping for an item that isnt something i already have.

They didn't remove the milestone achievements...

 

[Radav]

you can get hat easily, you need to make 30 headshots in a row with the heavy weapon guy.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Thou shalt NEVER insult Valve!!!

(Valve fanboy present)

I was feeling a bit angry at the time, I've still got a level of anger towards Valve, though.

They add these things, but you can never earn them, but they bang on about them anyways... it's like double-you-tee-eff?

"Enjoy your lottery prize hats!"

 

[Frenger]

Good riddance.

The fact there are entire servers for this kind of thing, I have no beef with.

The problem with people who idle is that they also appear on regular servers. Screwing up for people who actually play the game.

Anyway, no one who play this game for the sake of the game cares about hats. They are just a nice side bonus.

Some of you guys should get a grip...

 

[Russian_Assassin]

I have only 2 hats so far... I am really doubting the trade system. WHo would want to trade a fine hat for a weapon that they already have 30 of?

 

[JC175]

I have only 2 hats so far... I am really doubting the trade system. WHo would want to trade a fine hat for a weapon that they already have 30 of?

I agree, I think the only leverage you're going to get would be for other hats and a medal, if you have one. Although some people are saying that in the latest update, the hat drop rate has doubled, although that information is from preliminary statistics.

Still no word from Valve though, if they're implementing this system they would definitely warn people first.