17 years after launch, Crew Fortress 2 nonetheless has a faithful fanbase—one which retains the traditional workforce shooter within the higher echelons of Steam’s concurrent participant rankings. And at present, via an on-line petition for the #SaveTF2 marketing campaign, over 140,000 members of that fanbase are declaring they’ve had sufficient.
TF2 has a long-standing bot downside. Official matchmade servers are rancid with bots, they usually aren’t simply headshotting your workforce’s Heavy with inhuman precision or flooding in-game chat with hate speech. In keeping with the #SaveTF2 website, they’re additionally a automobile for doxing and focused harassment. “There ought to be a zero-tolerance coverage regarding this sort of conduct,” the location says, “and Valve must be held accountable for persistently refusing to acknowledge it.”
This is not #SaveTF2’s first rodeo. The marketing campaign emerged in 2022 to demand that Valve tackle TF2’s long-neglected bot downside. Valve responded to the following wave of help and public outcry, implementing a collection of anti-cheat fixes all year long that culminated in a biblical-scale purge of bot-hosting accounts. By July of 2023, TF2 was having fun with a renaissance, breaking its all-time report for concurrent gamers. However the renaissance can be short-lived. Bots slowly reemerged, and with out ongoing anti-cheat help to fight them, they’ve as soon as once more swamped TF2’s official servers.
#SaveTF2’s present petition marketing campaign has a easy purpose: higher, persistently supported anti-cheat measures for TF2, and “an open line of communication” with Valve as to how the bots are being addressed. At time of writing, the #SaveTF2 website has collected greater than 140,000 signatures via its automated petition type, every accompanied by an electronic mail despatched to Valve with a duplicate of the petition. In keeping with the location, it is presently sending an electronic mail each second.
The #SaveTF2 website additionally particulars a June 3 (that is at present!) neighborhood operation for its public consciousness marketing campaign, asking TF2 gamers to share screenshots and video proof of the bot plague on each social media platform with the #FixTF2 hashtag. By doing so, the hope is to underline the size of the bot downside, “to remodel this perceived petty drama into the huge, game-defining scandal that it’s.” The language is perhaps a tad over-eager, however I love the sentiment.
Realistically, devs cannot help a recreation without end. Finally the lights have to show off—in a perfect world, it might be after archivists and neighborhood server efforts have all of the instruments they should take over. However in TF2’s case, Valve remains to be utilizing the sport to promote cosmetics. If gamers can nonetheless spend cash on the product, they’re proper to anticipate it to work.
I am going to say this for the petitioners: They know how you can use nostalgia. The petition website is lovingly crafted within the fashion of the hype pages Valve would launch forward of TF2 updates. Giving it a learn took me proper again to 2009, once I was eagerly combing the Classless Replace write-up and dreaming of my very personal tower of hats. Hopefully, a day will come once I can return to 2Fort sporting my three hats directly, with out being menaced by aimbots.
