The Team Fortress Hat Scandal

Newsflash! Developer Valve cracks down on cheaters! Cheaters cry HAX!


It's been a bit more than a year since I stopped playing Team Fortress 2. While an excellant multiplayer shooter to be sure, it was one of those games I do not excell at. Like Halo and Call of Duty, it's one of those games where I will have the highest death rate on the server. Some times I have my good days, most days I spend the entire match taking it in the digital ass.

However, thanks to a web comic I read called Nerf Now, which deals heavily with TF2, I manage to stay unintentionall up to date on the latest patches, features, and fixes.
From what I've learned, TF2 implemented hats into the game...Not sure if they do anything, but they're there. They appear at random making it a bitch to get them. So, some guys got together and created a program where all you do is idle around, and wait for the drops. You don't shoot anyone...you just Idle.
Valve did not take kindly to this. In a recent crackdown, all the Idlers lost everything they had unlocked while those who had not cheated for hats were granted a little halo hat.

Oh, the Nerd Rage (Post from Valve forum)...It burns like the summer sun on your skin, doesn't it? I haven't felt this much heat coming from the nerd community since 4th Edition got released.

It's a game, people. Play it and have fun with it. Don't bitch and whine as though the developers turned out to be the ones who molested you as a child.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I'm all for playing the game outside of the means it was meant to be played...but what these guys were doing is ludicrous. You play a shooter...to shoot people. Not camp out and wait for some magical hat or weapon to drop just to have it.

Then again, I have no sympathy for people who turn first person shooters into some sort of martial art lifestyle~ Primarily because they're better than me. And we all know there's no room for anything like that in the world.

Well done, Valve. Well done.