Hats/Idling

[Plinko]

Look, this is all Valve's problem. They chose to distribute excessively rare, useless items via a metric of time spent connected to a server. Since people want the item, they are going to do what is required to have a chance at them.
This was highly predictable - anyone who has played an MMO, heck anyone who took Econ 101, would have said right away 'if you make this the method, people are just going to connect to servers and idle for a more chances.'

They could have made it so that you had to DO something, say every 100 kills you got a chance. At the end of every 10th round you got a chance, or every week that you actually connect and play you have a chance. Instead, they chose to give you a tiny tiny chance every two hours you're connected to any server. So people are increasing the time connected to servers because that's the incentive created. Making one so easy to use means people will do it, if it were harder, most people would stop doing it.

If I offer you $0.000001 every time you use the word 'the' and you start using the word more often, who am I to complain? Complaining about it would be further proof of my stupidity, unless I wanted you to actually say that word more often, in which case, I would be getting exactly what I wanted. I guess I ought to be smart and change the deal as soon as I could if I didn't actually want to pay you.

[Torven]

[quote="Plinko";p="191701"]Look, this is all Valve's problem. They chose to distribute excessively rare, useless items via a metric of time spent connected to a server. Since people want the item, they are going to do what is required to have a chance at them.
This was highly predictable - anyone who has played an MMO, heck anyone who took Econ 101, would have said right away 'if you make this the method, people are just going to connect to servers and idle for a more chances.'

They could have made it so that you had to DO something, say every 100 kills you got a chance. At the end of every 10th round you got a chance, or every week that you actually connect and play you have a chance. Instead, they chose to give you a tiny tiny chance every two hours you're connected to any server. So people are increasing the time connected to servers because that's the incentive created. Making one so easy to use means people will do it, if it were harder, most people would stop doing it.

If I offer you $0.000001 every time you use the word 'the' and you start using the word more often, who am I to complain? Complaining about it would be further proof of my stupidity, unless I wanted you to actually say that word more often, in which case, I would be getting exactly what I wanted. I guess I ought to be smart and change the deal as soon as I could if I didn't actually want to pay you.[/quote]

They could have made it so that you had to do something; they even considered it, but dismissed it quickly.

The reason we don't tie in-game performance to hat drops is because we wouldn't be able to stop players from cheating. Any data we gather from servers can be faked, and would be faked as soon as people worked out what we were using to determine drops. The idle server is essentially "cheating", but they're not able to earn items any faster than someone who's playing during that time, which is something they would be able to do if we added performance related rewards.

So, don't blame Valve; blame every jacktard who has abused stat farming servers, statistic editors or unlockers. The decision to have this based off nothing but time is in response to their asshattery. Furthermore, Valve is not making these people use a third party program to do this; that isn't even the only alternative to people who are too impatient to wait for hats during normal game play. Getting all bent out of shape because they made them too rare for your tastes is not a justification for what these people are doing, and if Valve decides it is against the Subscriber Agreement, it will not be a defense, either. I hate to be the Dutch uncle on this, but this feeling of entitlement is leading some otherwise reasonable people to some less than well-thought decisions.

[Bronze Fox]

Torven, I think you're taking this a bit too far.
It's a game.
Why should you care about someone in like, Sweden idling? The answer, you shouldn't.
Also, with your, "blame every jacktard who has abused stat farming servers" you're also calling about 20% of the TF2 Ville community "jacktards".

I don't want to start a fight with you, I just want you to calm down, please.

[Boss Llama]

Seriously, for people claiming to not care about hats, some of you care an awful lot about other people's hats.

If you don't like idling and don't care about hats, fine, that's ok. Nobody compells you to idle, and nobody compells to to wear a hat on the off-chance you get one. Nothing makes you need hats, and no advantage is gained by others by having them. Why are ya'll so angry and/or jealous about it than? You don't see the idlers attacking the non-idlers and insulting their integrity, intelligence, or maturity. Some of the attacks leveled here would get a person kicked from the servers, and I'm a bit sick of it. I myself don't use any third party program, I actually log in to the game like everybody else. Many others do the same. Take your generalizations elsewhere.

So, to repeat: if you "don't care" about it, fine, quit bringing it up.

[Stevo]

Hats are silly

[Buzzy Beetle]

[M's]

[quote="Shifty";p="191585"]I don't have a single hat, and I don't give half a crap![/quote]

Nor do I have any of the "really cool stuff".
But who cares.

[Araris]

While I do agree Torven could have used a little better phrasing I'm in complete agreement. Listen my frustration comes from the fact that Villuns keep getting their accounts hijacked despite warnings from other Villuns. I know that people want hats (that's fine, I'm biased since I got my hat the legal way). If Valve or someone else does something to those who have used this idle program (someone else as in the program creator steals accounts) I'm hardly inclined to have any feelings at all. It's a risk certain Villuns are willing to take so I'll just leave it at that.

[Torven]

[quote="Alizée Fan";p="191732"]Some of the attacks leveled here would get a person kicked from the servers, and I'm a bit sick of it.[/quote]

Yeah, I guess I should have just referred to it as a no-talent clown's answer to playing the game.

If you want to boot up the game and sit in an idle server, fine. The fact that you can do so is one of the reasons using the low drop rate fails as justification for using the idle client. My problem isn't with people going idle; my problem is with people spoofing communications to the Steam servers. Really, what do you think our response would be if we discovered someone doing something similar to our servers?

[Boss Llama]

[quote="Torven";p="191764"]
Yeah, I guess I should have just referred to it as a no-talent clown's answer to playing the game.
[/quote]

If getting hats had anything to do with talent, as getting kills does, I would agree with you.

[Cpt. Winky]

[quote="Stevo";p="191735"]Hats are silly[/quote]

[Guardian]

[quote="Cpt. Winky";p="191768"][quote="Stevo";p="191735"]Hats are silly[/quote][/quote]

[eraD]

[quote="Guardian";p="191769"][quote="Cpt. Winky";p="191768"][quote="Stevo";p="191735"]Hats are silly[/quote][/quote][/quote]
You still cried about them when you got them taken away from you.

[mr_s]

[quote="eraD";p="191810"]
[quote="Guardian";p="191769"][quote="Cpt. Winky";p="191768"][quote="Stevo";p="191735"]Hats are silly[/quote][/quote][/quote]
You still cried about them when you got them taken away from you.
[/quote]

[mr_s]

Going to chuck an arfy on this one.

I just like seeing others with cosmetic accessories on, even tho i dont have squat.

Makes the game more interesting