As Team Fortress 2 approaches its 17th anniversary, the game remains a popular choice among players. However, a concerning issue has plagued the community in recent years: an influx of disruptive bots. To grab Valve‘s attention once more, fans have launched a special campaign today.
The campaign is hosted on the Save.tf website (“Save TF”) and aims to:
- Petition for signatures on the website.
- Encourage sharing on social media using #FixTF2 and #SaveTF2 hashtags.
- Raise awareness about the bot issue through various means like videos, memes, images, and personal stories.
- Highlight today, June 3rd, as the central day of the campaign.
- Verify and deliver the collected signatures to Valve.
A previous campaign in 2022 saw a participant staging a solo protest outside Valve‘s office.
The bot problem in Team Fortress 2 has rendered the game nearly unplayable, with bots instantly eliminating real players or expelling them from servers.
Campaign organizers reveal that these bots engage in malicious activities like spamming offensive content, promoting paid “bot immunity” services, leaking personal information, and even committing serious crimes such as data manipulation, DDoS attacks, and “swatting” incidents.
A telltale sign of a bot in Team Fortress 2 is a sniper holding a rifle vertically.
Despite promises from Valve to address the concerns of the Team Fortress 2 community, little progress has been made. The organizers of Save.tf express their frustration:
It appears that Valve prioritizes profits from microtransactions over fixing Team Fortress 2. The game is in a dire state, and Valve‘s inaction is unacceptable.
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TF2 doesn’t need new content or weapons; it needs a solution to the bot crisis.
At the time of this report, Save.tf has gathered over 122,000 signatures. The impact of the campaign is evident on the Team Fortress 2 Steam page, with recent reviews dropping to a “mixed” rating (68%) and an increase in negative feedback, accompanied by the #FixTF2 and #SaveTF2 hashtags.
Review trend for Team Fortress 2.
Source: stopgame.ru