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[shadow_archmagi]

Idling in game is different because you're not circumventing anything. And Valve really can't punish people from idling on a server while in TF2. Thats just plain stupid, at least they have the excuse of a 3rd party program against TOS to go back on for the idle program, but idle servers are still allowed because once they start punishing people for what they do on non-valve servers while in-game, or even punishing non-valve servers from running custom maps, then people will get REALLY pissed.

What's this about "circumventing"

Either way I'm running a program for hours to accumulate items. What difference does it make whether my graphics card is taxed or not. It is the same number of hours, the same amount of effort, etc.

They don't need TOS to back them up; we aren't trying to sue them. We're just saying it's unfair to punish us for running a graphics/sound-disabled version of TF2 to idle with less RAM.

What precisely have I "circumvented"? Is there something inherently sacred about the TF2 official loading screen, or the urge to display dozens of people standing, screaming, dying, and then respawning for hours on end?

[Jreengus]

And even worse to punish us out of the blue after they have known about this program acknowledged this program and said it didn't hurt anyone.

[KaelGotDwarves]

I'm still not sure why you insist that joining a random server and going off to watch Scrubs (leaving me to rage that I have four friends trying to join and the server has eight spectators) is perfectly legit while using external code to do the same thing is somehow this horrible sin.

I'm not insisting, I'm pointing out that Valve can enforce their ToS anytime they choose. External programs they don't like are against the ToS. Too bad.

I have the soldier's medal and halo, you can check it out on TF2items.com, KaelGotRice.

I don't care about hats. People cheated for hats and now they're crying about it all over the net like spoiled kids. It's not like I'm not going to help you if you don't have a halo in game, but seriously... only you guys cared about the hats.

None if this would even be mentioned if this thread wasn't filled with "WAHHHHHHHH I cheated and Valve removed my hats it's so unfair" posts.

EDIT: And even if you don't think it was cheating, it basically is botting, what made you think that it would be a good idea? If you don't think it's morally right, don't do it.

[Jreengus]

Kael, please just shut up. Please.

[shadow_archmagi]

[quote author=KaelGotDwarves link=topic=31265.msg743264#msg743264
None if this would even be mentioned if this thread wasn't filled with "WAHHHHHHHH I cheated and Valve removed my hats it's so unfair" posts.
[/quote]

The difficulty being that for every one of those posts there is a corresponding

"CRY SOME MOAR, IDLING BITCH" post.  Tempers are flaring and trolls are rampant on both sides. 

I don't mind them doing the retroactive purge. It's the timing and the style of it. While it is true that valve's ToS says "we can declare anything we want cheating and punish it however we like whenever we like" it is quite a dick move to wait half a year before acting.

Valve was completely aware of idlers for a large amount of time and at no point issued any statements to give any viewpoint on it.

The flaw here wasn't the punishment of idlers. The flaw was the timing (months too late) style (completely unwarned) execution (many legit items were deleted) and the division of the playerbase into "Moral High Roaders" and "Cheaters"

[shadow_archmagi]

Kael, please just shut up. Please.

That isn't helping. I'm sure that, as a member of the DF forums, Kael is a rational person and we can discuss this without resorting to "shut up"

[Jreengus]

Well I'm fed up of him trolling and I thought bluntness would be better so I deleted most of my post to bring it down to what I was effectively saying in a few words.

We can discuss this without resorting to shut up but when one person is just trolling shut up seems an appropriate response.

[Broose]

I'm still not sure why you insist that joining a random server and going off to watch Scrubs (leaving me to rage that I have four friends trying to join and the server has eight spectators) is perfectly legit while using external code to do the same thing is somehow this horrible sin.

I'm not insisting, I'm pointing out that Valve can enforce their ToS anytime they choose. External programs they don't like are against the ToS. Too bad.

I have the soldier's medal and halo, you can check it out on TF2items.com, KaelGotRice.

I don't care about hats. People cheated for hats and now they're crying about it all over the net like spoiled kids. It's not like I'm not going to help you if you don't have a halo in game, but seriously... only you guys cared about the hats.

None if this would even be mentioned if this thread wasn't filled with "WAHHHHHHHH I cheated and Valve removed my hats it's so unfair" posts.

EDIT: And even if you don't think it was cheating, it basically is botting, what made you think that it would be a good idea? If you don't think it's morally right, don't do it.

Nobody cares that much about hats. It is not like you are working hard or wasting your time or anything to get hats by idling. Idlers saw that Valve didn't say anything, so they decided they must not care. It was simple: either don't get hats, or get hats with no consequence. People thought, "Why not?". Then Valve decided to just ruin what everyone thought of them by making a big decision like this with no warning. And what is morally wrong with idling? Nobody is getting hurt, and people are wasting less time.

[KaelGotDwarves]

The flaw here wasn't the punishment of idlers. The flaw was the timing (months too late) style (completely unwarned) execution (many legit items were deleted) and the division of the playerbase into "Moral High Roaders" and "Cheaters"

Word has it that the legit items are going back now, but yeah that sucks. I know someone who got the items back, but can't equip them due to backpack issues.

I fully agree that the rollback was poorly executed, though not fully unexpected. The items are the main problem here, as they affect gameplay. Valve is sending a firm message that 3rd party programs that access Valve games are prohibitive, I guess. You can't hit people just for idling in a game, but you can hit them for violating ToS.

"Cheater" or "moral high roader" to me doesn't matter in game, and it shouldn't matter in game to anyone, though I know it will. I should have known by now that there's no fury like internet fury.

Whatever, feel free to talk about it further.

Thatguyyaknow: How is it trolling when I point out that valve has a right to do whatever they want when people who agreed to a legally binding agreement conveniently ignored it? Disregarding ToS, anything that can be regarded as a cheating program... and furthermore, I know all idlers aren't complaining about it so I'm deeply appreciative of those who are sucking it up and won't do stuff like that again.

[Jreengus]

Well untill that very post you were entirely ignoring peoples real complaints, you seemed to be stuck on the fact that we lost our hats and were just telling us to stop wining about it and pointing out the ToS, things which we weren't really complaining about.

On top of that how am I supposed to view posts like this:

I don't really care about hats so whatever. I personally don't see the huge problem but I find it kind of funny that Valve trolled people hard. They released all these joke websites telling you hats make you superior, and then when people use a cheating program for hats, BAM (suckerpunch, rope-a-dope, own't).

It's almost beautiful.

Yeh, that's totally not just trolling. 

[KaelGotDwarves]

Well, what I'm saying is that if we all stood back a bit, it does become pretty obvious that Valve set up us the bomb. 

Also, I didn't ignore real complaints, I was addressing the main issue that there was a binding agreement, and valve can decide to enforce anytime of their choosing. I agree to disagree and so forth.

[Broose]

It doesn't violate the ToS. Here is a quote from the blog post:

Due to us not having a policy in place prior to today, this time we're only removing the items earned through cheating the system.

So they had no rule against it.

[Jreengus]

It doesn't violate the ToS. Here is a quote from the blog post:

Due to us not having a policy in place prior to today, this time we're only removing the items earned through cheating the system.

So they had no rule against it.

I qouted this right at the beginning I stated it as the core thing annoying me and you totally ignored it Kael. The ToS isn't the main issue, valve can do almost anything they want within the ToS, the main issue is that what they did was a massive prick move worthy of EA.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Argh, as pointed out earlier, "There was no specific policy in the ToS against using a program to connect to a TF2 server and have it idle there in order to get hats and items"... BUT, there is a statement on the ToS that you will not have 3rd party programs access Valve games in a way they don't like, which is VERY broad in interpretation.

Either way it's just not a good idea to have programs accessing games in a way the game's creator did not intend. It'll get you in trouble with punkbuster and it'll get you in trouble with Valve and almost any online game.

[Jreengus]

And yet your post still doesn't address the fact that Valve handled this terribly by making a ruling and retroactively enforced it with no warning, especially since this ruling was the complete contrary to how they had regarded the program previously.