teamfortress.com/post.php?id=2787

Everybody who ever used an idler program to try and get items had their accounts flagged. Valve then pinpointed which items were obtained through the program and removed them. The result: a lot of people lost a lot of items, even ones that had been earned through the original achievement milestone system.

The response from the TF2 community (judging by the posting in the TF2 forums) has been "generally pissed-off". A lot of people are mad for losing items that they shouldn't have lost and the fact that Valve didn't officially announce they were going to punish idlers before-hand. I remember seeing somebody comparing it to "beating children without telling them why they were being beaten".

In all honesty, Valve is 100% justified in doing this. A review of the STEAM EULA does prove that use of the idle program is grounds for way more than just item loss. In the grand scheme of things, Valve is actually being nice. Still, losing items that had been legitimately earned... that just doesn't seem right.

So, any TF2 players out there who were affected by this? How many items did you lose?

UDPATE: No official news post on this yet, but a Valve employee posted in the TF2 forum stating that all players who lost items earned through achievement milestones will have the items restored tomorrow (9/3).


Last Edit: Sept 3, 2009 5:36:32 GMT by Scorpian