TF2 Idling Application Users Busted

Because we're all pointing and laughing at you. And you "feel bad" I'm sure.
 
Active since release. Idlers I salute you.

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Cry some moar.
 
So the extra CPU burden you get from actually running TF2 somehow makes real idling a more 'moral' enterprise? What tosh.
 
Laivasse said:
So the extra CPU burden you get from actually running TF2 somehow makes real idling a more 'moral' enterprise? What tosh.
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This rather:

toaster leigh said:
Beyond that, Valve have proven in the past that they don't have any tolerance for outside applications used to manipulate the game in such a way, so you really can't act too surprised that they'd do something like this. It certainly didn't come out of nowhere.
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And again, cry some more.

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I haven't really played since the item drops were released. I did play for about 2 weeks trying to find items and I found exactly 1 sandvich, which was a little upsetting to be 'that' guy on the end of the curve. I never used a program though, and I have the halo...which is the only other item I've gotten since the item drops were released.

I just don't see what the big deal is, they don't do anything? The medals were cool because there's a little number of them, but hats...what's the big deal? Now I'm reading stories about medics who won't heal people with halos or medics that only heal people with halos. Really? REALLY?
 
Laivasse said:
So the extra CPU burden you get from actually running TF2 somehow makes real idling a more 'moral' enterprise? What tosh.
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This is a very, very common social illusion. It's best illustrated as this: "You gave a homeless man a sandwich? Ha, like that's going to solve poverty." For some reason, people always strive for a perfect, often unrealistic solution, therefore opposing small improvements.
 
Shakermaker said:
This rather:
toaster leigh said:
Beyond that, Valve have proven in the past that they don't have any tolerance for outside applications used to manipulate the game in such a way, so you really can't act too surprised that they'd do something like this. It certainly didn't come out of nowhere.
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What's that got to do with what I said...?
Shakermaker said:
And again, cry some more.
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Grow up, trollstaff.
Sledgehammer said:
This is a very, very common social illusion. It's best illustrated as this: "You gave a homeless man a sandwich? Ha, like that's going to solve poverty." For some reason, people always strive for a perfect, often unrealistic solution, therefore opposing small improvements.
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I'm not sure what point you're making, but if you're trying to say I'm 'opposing small improvements', read back. I'm saying make sure idlers never get anything at all in future, and then all this drama can be avoided.
 
Shakermaker said:
I wanted to point out that Valve's morals concerning cheating have always been very clear: using an outside app is considered cheating.
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They also appear to have taken a dim view of farming, hence the creation of the randomised system in the first place. Yet since the start, the drop system has been wide open to exactly the same type of abuse as achievements were.

This crackdown has done nothing to close that hole. Instead it creates a bit of a double standard by keeping it open, while patronisingly labelling as 'cheaters' the people who are doing marginally less measurable harm than real idlers. Since the idler has already been shut down, I don't see what Valve really have to gain by pissing off any part of their playerbase - and I suspect it's much larger than 4.5% of the active base - by bleating about 'morals' in this.

However my main point is just: why do idlers get items anyway? Otherwise, I'm not surprised or pissed off that fake-idled items have been deleted, nor have I ever said I was.
toaster leigh said:
I think that real idling is pretty stupid too, don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is that real idling is permissible within the game, whereas outside applications are not. I don't see real idling as too much of an issue for the reason I don't see achievement grinding as too much of an issue; neither are fun, nor are they convenient, but they're still permitted.
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The way I've always understood the rationale in favour of the drop system was that Valve were making an attempt to cut 'acheatment' type shenanigannery out of the game by randomising your rewards. If so, they've shot this very aim in the foot from day one by allowing idlers to pick up drops. And now, the fake idler crackdown (while necessary) has made a lot of people frown by way of its execution, without really plugging the hole. I mean it's not like dedicated idlers only appeared after the fake idler popped up.

EDIT: It also bears repeating, for those who are hung up the '3rd party application' aspect of this, that there are no reports of DF being censured by Valve over his creation of the idler. Quite the opposite, in fact. So why take a silly schoomarm-ish tone with people who actually used it...?
 
Pulse said:
Yeah, I fail to see how the idler provided an 'unfair competitive advantage' or constituted in any way as a "Cheat". Some of you need to learn Valve's definition of a "Cheat" before supporting them so blindly.
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That wasn't the part of the legal agreement I was referring to:
You are entitled to use the Steam Software for your own use, but you are not entitled to:
(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
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The steam forums are bursting at the seams. TF2 playerbase is now divided into halos vs non halos.

The game is now Team Halo 2. Red-Halos vs Red vs Blu-Halos vs Blu.

And today was the day that TF2 died.
 
The Steam forums are always bursting with something. There's so much hot air and frothing at the mouth, that it's like a really, really bad sauna.
 
sensai said:
If it is about rules and principles, don't bring in arguments and comparisons that don't have anything to do with the point you are trying to make.
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That's just your point of view, but everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
 
Laivasse is pretty much posting my thoughts, although perhaps in a less angry manner. =P

The whole thing wouldn't leave a sour taste in my mouth if this was a clean cut affair that offered an actual solution to the problem in the end. Instead, Valve took their sweet time to give any official word on the matter, cooked up a "surprise" punishment, issued a moral castigation against players, bent their numbers to make it seem like it wasn't a widespread issue, all while ultimately failing to fix their broken crap that allowed idling (both progged and "legit) in the first place.

For a company that spends so much time and money trying to get into the heads of their players, understanding their urges and impulses, and creating finely crafted experiences that push all our pleasure buttons, I can't help but think their expectations of their playerbase are way off on this matter. They left a giant loophole, refused to prohibit it usage, and... what? Expected people to adhere to a ****ing honor system? When you put cool shit in your game, of course people are going to try and find the quickest and most efficient way of acquiring it.
 
Uh, "Cheater's Lament", Kinetic.
 
**** MY LIFE

Really though I mean they didn't exactly call uhhhhh OKAY FINE

Damnit Jintor. Damn you.
 
After a good night sleep I still don't get the idlers' outrage. You used an application which is clearly not allowed in the end-user agreement. Now Valve is punishing this kind of cheating by removing the hats again. It is not that you're banned, nor are you branded as a cheater. You just lost your hats and the people who didn't use any idling apps received a halo. What is the big problem? We're just talking about hats here, not overpowered weapons.
 
Sliver said:
Apparently

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This explains the whole thing.

Hats are rewards for people that play tf2 a lot. You use a program to get hats without playing a lot. You cheated. You're an asshole. You got caught, cry some more. :frog:
 
Wear your pretty Halo all you want it just makes it easier for me to kill you.

Shakermaker said:
After a good night sleep I still don't get the idlers' outrage. You used an application which is clearly not allowed in the end-user agreement. Now Valve is punishing this kind of cheating by removing the hats again. It is not that you're banned, nor are you branded as a cheater. You just lost your hats and the people who didn't use any idling apps received a halo. What is the big problem? We're just talking about hats here, not overpowered weapons.
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None of that matters they are still going to be pissed off. It's irrelevant whether or not they broke the rules in the process. Valve speaks of a trading system and now a crafting system but do we actually have either of those or any proof of either of those systems existing? No they just punish players and don't seem to have an actual solution to their broken system.
 
Idlers are worse than Hitler and Stalin combined, they got off easy.
 
Eh, sorry for stupid question, but what exactly are external idling applications?
These are not those servers where you connect and stand for hours, hoping you will get something, are they?
 
Boddah said:
Eh, sorry for stupid question, but what exactly are external idling applications?
These are not those servers where you connect and stand for hours, hoping you will get something, are they?
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And this is the type of retard who got a halo.
Congrats. You're a moron.
 
Eejit said:
Idlers are worse than Hitler and Stalin combined, they got off easy.
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Yes 'cause using a piece of software to idle in a game is much worse than mass genocide...
I can only hope you were joking.

Just to chuck in my final 2 pence worth, I feel Valve should have warned people first about what they were planning (like just saying if you persist there will be consequences) then if people did persist to use the program, then "screw" them over. I can guarantee most of the people who were just trying it because they were fed up of not getting aesthetic items would have stopped and then the “twats” who didn’t want to play the game but still had to have everything would be punished. Maybe that would have defeated the whole point of this but I still think a warning would have been a decent thing to do.
 
This was the warning. They only deleted the items acquired by cheating. Future offenses to their new policy (policy because common sense didn't cut it) will be punished.
 
That's kind of sad.

TF2 and Valve's handling of it has always been very tongue-in-cheek. I don't think this has been any exception, but some people are taking it far too seriously because they actually had something taken away. Though it's as if they actually had to work for it, which they really haven't. It's really very silly, and I hope Valve doesn't cave at all.
 
Hunter-Killer said:
Yes 'cause using a piece of software to idle in a game is much worse than mass genocide...
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Ah but I said Hitler and Stalin combined. Their genocides cancel out, like matter and anti-matter.
 
The Brick said:
Hats are rewards for people that play tf2 a lot. You use a program to get hats without playing a lot. You cheated. You're an asshole. You got caught, cry some more. :frog:
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Like... huh? Did you miss the huge ****ing part where the drop system does not reward play in any way?

And Shaker, if you're going to troll idlers, surely you can do better than the dismally unfunny Ctrl+Alt+Del.
 
It's funny how people keep complaining that valve didn't warn them first. They're basically saying, "why can't I do something I know is wrong, until valve tells me to stop, and then not get punished for it!"

If they started doing that, then people would be free to use whatever program they wanted until valve told them to stop. The surprise item deletions, bannings, etc keep people wary and scared to try unscrupulous programs. You can't warn idlers then 'randomly' punish people who used an unlocker program, "the idlers got a warning! why didn't we! this isn't fair!"
 
@absinthe how is posting a CAD comic that is very relevant to this thread, trolling? Besides, I already trolled yesterday with the pics I posted.
 
The Brick said:
This was the warning. They only deleted the items acquired by cheating. Future offenses to their new policy (policy because common sense didn't cut it) will be punished.
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OK a pre-warning warning then :p
toaster leigh said:
Do you really think that most people were using the application without understanding that it wasn't allowed? Valve have punished people in the past for using outside applications, and it's not permitted in the TOS. That should have been enough of a warning. So because they don't agree with the current system in place, they're allowed to break the rules all they want? Don't think it works like that, brah
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Yeah I actually DO honestly think some people didn’t know it wasn’t allowed. I personally don’t know Valves “Bible of Law” but when you look at the “Steamstats” site it was actually very convincing and had loads about how it doesn’t break the rules, with examples and so on. You may have forgotten the world we live in, not everyone is a screwed on as you may think and I’m sure many people just thought “Argh I want a damn hat! What’s this? A program that can get hats, and it’s not against the rules, get in there!”
I’m not backing them up, in fact I think getting the “illegal” items taken away was the right thing to do but I feel this whole petty “halo war” is just dividing the community, and I can pretty much bet it was higher than 5%.
What I find just plain funny is that the other day I was playing a VAC server (as always) and was being shot through the wall by a Scout who had a halo on, talk about f**king irony!
In the end of the day they do need to hurry up with the system and then maybe (well, most definatly) people will stop idling. The picture Pulse uploaded just says it’s all really... :(
(Out of interest has Valve done anything to stop the idle servers?"
 
xcellerate said:
It's funny how people keep complaining that valve didn't warn them first. They're basically saying, "why can't I do something I know is wrong, until valve tells me to stop, and then not get punished for it!"

If they started doing that, then people would be free to use whatever program they wanted until valve told them to stop. The surprise item deletions, bannings, etc keep people wary and scared to try unscrupulous programs. You can't warn idlers then 'randomly' punish people who used an unlocker program, "the idlers got a warning! why didn't we! this isn't fair!"
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If I read correctly, the TOS doesn't allow external applications that give a competitive edge to the user (I'm open to correction here). The idler program didn't really do that in my opinion. People here have argued that the idler allows you to get items without actually playing, but play was never required to begin with as evidenced by the existence of idle servers. It's not like players weren't already hitting spectator mode and alt-tabbing to do other shit, so while the program might have been a convenience, it did not give an actual advantage other than saving you some CPU cycles.

If Valve has an issue with people misleading their Steam service, then that's understandable. But don't paint this up as if the idler prog was some kind of unfair hack. They were silent for months when they could have put their foot down instead of letting the community guess at their position. That we're even having this debate shows that this wasn't such a clear-cut matter for many players. People like to say that this is just another example of players wanting to be instantly gratified. But I think you'd see the number of idlers shrink if they were given some path toward being proactive in obtaining items.

Oh right. Crafting and trading. Where are those again?

So delete the items, okay, fine. But I don't appreciate their attempts to marginalize the idling issue with that BS 4.5% statistic given how many people were using the app at any given time. Nobody wants to be called the "bad minority", which Valve essentially did with the whole blog post and halo hat.
 
Absinthe said:
They were silent for months when they could have put their foot down instead of letting the community guess at their position.
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Pretty much every online game does delayed reactions. DII would wait weeks before banning bot users, VAC waits weeks before banning hackers, why would people think TF2 should give instant user feedback about whether or not this was okay?

WWGS?

Pretend I asked gabe, "I'm using an idler program to find items, is that okay?" Which response would you wager $100 on? yes or no? I would hope you'd be smart enough to guess "no."

edit: but that's exactly what happened, idlers weren't 100% sure of valve's stance on the situation, so they made a guess, and they guessed wrong.
 
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