IDLERS BEWARE! BLU is onto you!

[J4CK8]

That better be on his server, something he gave himself, I can't say I'd be happy if they considered him valuable to the community.

The pic was posted in the Steam forums BUT Drunken f00l did post and say he only got that weapon on that server and it wasn't/isn't in his backpack...

 

[Caliostro]

c) That using an external program to simulate spectator mode on a game server to get rewarded items meant to be found during gameplay is not cheating - even though, for some reason, no one can justify why they need an external program to do so in the first place.

I mean, am I *that* far off base? Really?!? 'Cause maybe I'm just an old douchebag, but "back in my day" gaming the system was considered cheating.

I think I'm going to shoot off a real e-mail requesting several Valve employee's opinions on the issue, and whether or not idling is hindering some sort of technical progress as I suspect it is.

Disregarding the fact that you can't count (or are terrible at making jokes), Idling isn't cheating. All the "idler" program does is bypass having to have the game open, saving resources.

You still need to own the game, and it's no different from sitting in spectator mode while you sleep, except it doesn't hog as many resources from what I can tell.

There you go, your reason.

 

[Terr]

All they have to do is to track how many directional "steps" a player takes during a single session where they don't disconnect from the same server.

AFAIK they can't do that: That would be relying on the server to report statistics, and we can't trust the server...

Could drops POSSIBLY attributed to the time of day that the game is played? 'Cause I kinda play around the same time, all the time - and seem to get multiple drops of the same items very, very often.

Possibly? Yes. But the only way to know is real statistical analysis across multiple players.

 

[LordNor]

Naw man, there's a difference. I don't attack people personally, dude. I don't use things that other players say, out of context, to fire up and vilify someone in a public forum just to gain a false sense of power over them.

I'm gonna write this out, just to get it off my chest and put it behind me... honestly, no one has to read past this point.

I'm very aware of how I treat people, in real life and in the virtual world, and I'm way too empathetic to want to hurt someone with words over something as simple as a video game. Not to mention a video game that's SUPPOSED to encourage both the growth of its community and camaraderie amongst its players.

People must read my posts like I'm frothing at the mouth as I'm writing, or something to that nature. It couldn't be further from the truth. I'm sitting here calm, collected, drinking some ice cold crystal lite.

If I call someone a cheater, I have good reason to. Feel free to defend yourself, but that does not give you reason to attack me, or anyone for that matter, personally.

But I used to be that type of person. When I was in my 20's. And, yes, as much as a teenager or a young adult in their 20's doesn't want to admit it - an intelligent adult is always five steps ahead of them when it comes to recognizing patterns that repeat, good and bad, throughout their lives.

And, in my 20's, I didn't want to hear that. And neither do most of these guys. So they pick at little things - like how you word a sentence - or when you've finally had it, and you see the topic is heading down a dark path that - as an adult, you would rather not continue on - they announce to world that you are evading the issue.

But this is the TRUE face of immaturity. It's not calling someone out on something you consider to be bullshit. It's when you state your point, and the other person replies with something that, as a more experienced member of the species, you can clearly see is an attempt at justifying something that is simply... incorrect.

Sorry for the rant, guys. Let's just agree to disagree, if that's the case - because honestly, I'm being called to do something right now that many of the people I communicated with today have yet to experience...

Sitting on a couch, eating chocolate chip cookies and milk, watching Discovery with two people who truly love and understand me on a much more intimate level than any 20 year-old in the World could possibly comprehend.

And I'm not talking about my parents. lol

Goodnight. TTYL

too MUCH TEXT god will you people just stop flaming each other, it is a game, whether or not you idle shouldnt bother the next guy...! Holy Buckets!

 

[grazr]

And here's something odd that happened last night. I've been reading drop rate algo threads and I don't remember, but do any of those stats mention what the chances are of a player receiving multiple items in a drop?

I got my 19827th Ambassador and another Bonk! Lunchbox at the same time. I also have like five Cloak & Daggers. lol Could drops POSSIBLY attributed to the time of day that the game is played? 'Cause I kinda play around the same time, all the time - and seem to get multiple drops of the same items very, very often.

Does anyone here think that drops are stats driven in any way?

Because I'm still receiving high level items for classes that I've been playing a lot more of than others - and low lvl items for classes I don't play often - like Scout. I've even read some players believe Valve abandoned the whole item lvl system, but it's not true because I'm receiving leveled items still.

Well it doesn't seem to be working that way for me. Both my hats are for classes i don't play and the same can be said for my weapons. I had a basements worth of Scout, Heavy and Sniper equipment. I was under the assumption it may drop items to encourage playing for other classes players might otherwise avoid. If it did at all.

Other than de-valuing the existance of hats i don't really see the problem. People only idle when they otherwise wouldn't be playing TF2 anyway. So it's not like we're losing players. I don't see why you would hesitate playing TF2 to idle since as far as i'm aware the drop rate is.. the same.

Seems like hoo-haar over nothing.

 

[YM]

Well a statistical rate of one hat per idler, per 18 days is pretty rediculous

Its a freakin joke how there are people with half a dozen hats already and still people with none.

 

[LordNor]

People only idle when they otherwise wouldn't be playing TF2 anyway. So it's not like we're losing players.

Well said! I agree with you

 

[Terr]

Humans are social animals, and several studies have shown that people will act in an "irrational" manner (under the narrow definition of economic gain) when things are unfair. (Look up the variations of studies where two people have to split some money.)

In a nutshell, a large part of it is this: "You're doing something wrong and benefitting from it. In an indirect way it hurts me, but even if it didn't it would still not be fair that you are misbehaving and being rewarded."


_______________


IMO Valve should put something into the system so that more than 3-6 hours of idling is pointless since only the first 3-6 hours of a user's rolls per day have any chance of getting a hat. Then just bump up the hat chance by a similar factor to compensate.

Viola! If you play for three hours a day, don't even bother idling because it won't help. (At least not for hats.) If you play for one hour a day, idlers only have a 3x advantage over you instead of a 24x advantage.

 

[MrAlBobo]

personally I still find it kinda annoying when I see this:

6 out of the 10 people on my friends list in a game are idling
this basically means I can't play any games with these people and I have no idea if they are actually online as there is no message telling me that

actually...thinking about it, ill care about this a lot less if valve adds the online/ away/ snooze notices to the In-game part

 

[Icarus]

You can idle while you map

 

[Terr]

Source SDK time needs to count. :sneaky2:

 

[GManNickG]

Good job, Frag, you failed in this thread just as badly as you did on TF2F.

Grow up. Ever think that the problem might not be everyone else?

 

[evanonline]

actually...thinking about it, ill care about this a lot less if valve adds the online/ away/ snooze notices to the In-game part

I really, really wish they'd do that, even without the whole idler debacle.

I can change my entire screenname to "I AM AT WORK" and put myself on Away and people will still not only dig me up and identify my alias, they will completely ignore my name and just message me with random bullshit I probably wouldn't have even cared about if I HAD been there, but that's aside the point. How the hell can you miss all those incredibly obvious cues suggesting I might not be at my computer and STILL attempt to strike a conversation?

It gets worse when I'm in Source SDK, but....

 

[YM]

Good job, Frag, you failed in this thread just as badly as you did on TF2F.

Grow up. Ever think that the problem might not be everyone else?

Great first post... Personal attacks are not acceptable behaviour, make more of them and you might even not reach 10 posts.


End the attacks @ everyone.

 

[Fragimus_Max]

So far, this has been a pretty rational thread compared to others.

No matter how much someone tries to justify idling to me, I just can't see it - so, I personally don't idle and never will.

You know, I never really thought about idling while mapping... but, I guess you're being productive and doing something for the community, plus you are actually playtesting a map. The problem I have with inactive player idling is that Valve could easily throw a "standby" option on the main menu - but they didn't.

I think that there's a SourceMod option, but other than that, I don't even think you can be in Spectator mode without being kicked unless you are an admin. Am I correct about this?

I'm under the impression that you will be kicked in Spectator mode, and you don't when you use the idle program.

Either way, how could anyone argue that the item drops are meant for players that are participating in a game? I mean, even logging onto a server just to sit in spec mode so you don't have to play... it just seems, well, cheap to me.

But, I guess it's up to each player to judge that for themselves.

 

[evanonline]

I think that there's a SourceMod option, but other than that, I don't even think you can be in Spectator mode without being kicked unless you are an admin. Am I correct about this?

I'm under the impression that you will be kicked in Spectator mode, and you don't when you use the idle program.

The game doesn't kick you in Spectator, admins or server plugins do.

If you're playing on achievement_idle I would generally imagine that no one would care if you sit in spectator because the only difference between you and the people in the stage is that you're not inflating your time played as a certain class. Thus, idling still exists--just in a far less convenient matter.

The reason this update has me sorta angry isn't because NOOOOO MY PRECIOUS HATS or HURGH HOW CAN YOU TAKE IDLING FROM US, but just that Valve is only cracking down on one form of idling and it annoys me that they're sending a message that using this program is somehow different from sitting in an achievement_idle server--all it is is a convenience to players made by someone who seems to genuinely like the whole TF2 community. It's either everything is fair or everything is cheating--all Valve has done is taken action against the one that's easier for them to stop, and they'll probably turn their heads away from achievement_idle servers to pretend they've finally destroyed illegitimate hat obtaining.

 

[Jack Riguel]

-all Valve has done is taken action against the one that's easier for them to stop, and they'll probably turn their heads away from achievement_idle servers to pretend they've finally destroyed illegitimate hat obtaining.

If they do this, it's probably going to end like this, just like how they "fixed" regular achievement servers with this item drop system.

I see that a lot of people are throwing around ideas for making the rate for items more rare the longer you stay on the game. Think about this from Valve's point of view: Do they really want to incorporate a mechanic that discourages players from playing the game they played for too long? If people get upset about how all their friends are using idlers when they want to play, how worse do you think it would be that when you do play with them they instead leave an hour in since they find no reason to continue playing since they know they're not going to get anything

For those of you complaining about their friends sitting in achievement idle while they want to play TF2, let me propose a worse situation that I see even more frequently. I find it annoying when each one of my friends are playing in several different servers while our own server that we purchased stays empty.

Either way, Valve could have fixed this ages ago when achievement_idle was still fresh. All they had to do is disable items being given to spectators. But why haven't they done it yet? I was one of those kids who got the glitch that gave me all the hats and more after the Sniper/Spy update came out. In all truthfulness, the first thought that came through my head as I started seeing hat after hat being added to my backpack was: (after the generic 'wtf') How cool would it be if I could give these all to our comp team. Then when we would suck we would at least suck in style. But when Valve took them back I was fine with it. I sent a message off to steam support, but I understood the reasoning and didn't push it any farther.

I'm a reasonable person, but think of it this way: Valve has one boycott on their hands right now. How would you think the majority of the community would feel if Valve acted against every member of the community that used either the achievement idle servers or the steam stats?

 

[GManNickG]

So far, this has been a pretty rational thread compared to others.

No matter how much someone tries to justify idling to me, I just can't see it - so, I personally don't idle and never will.

Go back and read the TF2F thread, I've given two logic based proofs to why it's not cheating.

In the second one I made the premises and propositions very clear, so if you find an error, in either it's validity or soundness, it won't be hard to tell me.

Go ahead, take a shot, please.

 

[Jack Riguel]

Go back and read the TF2F thread, I've given two logic based proofs to why it's not cheating.

In the second one I made the premises and propositions very clear, so if you find an error, in either it's validity or soundness, it won't be hard to tell me.

Go ahead, take a shot, please.

Why not save us all the time and Post them here? I'd like to read them but I don't like scavenging pointlessly through forums, especially when the needed material isn't even on the forum I'm a member of.

 

[Terr]

Think about this from Valve's point of view: Do they really want to incorporate a mechanic that discourages players from playing the game they played for too long?

No longer actively encouraging with bonus features is not the same as discouraging. If someone stops playing after four hours just[/b] because it no longer gets them more hats, then they're playing the game for all the wrong reasons.