Valve has made some big news in the month of March. No, it was not any type of E3 announcements, but an update to their online first person shooter Team Fortress 2. The Sniper/Spy Update was the largest for Team Fortress 2 so far, containing new achievements and unlockable weapons for both the sniper and the spy and new community maps. There was one more item the update contained that literally blew away the Team Fortress 2 community, the new unlockable system… (cont.)
Prior to the sniper/spy update, players had to earn their new toys via the Steam Achievement System. A player had to successfully complete a number of achievements prior to reaching the class’s milestone reward. These unlockables occured once you reached 10 achievements completed, then at 16 achievements, and finally at 22 achievements. With the new system implemented on May 22nd, the unlockables were now rewarded randomly, regardless of what class you were playing. You could receive any of the available items whenever the system randomly decided to give them to you. This would also include duplicate items. Why duplicate items? Valve announced that they are planning to allow item trading later in a future patch.

My personal feelings on this news was mixed at best. I am a huge fan of Team Fortress 2 and love playing for the unlockables. My frustration is that the last few class updates center around classes that I don’t play. So, if I wanted to get the unlockables for that class, I either had to spend countless hours getting beaten and burned in game, or go to an achievement farming server. With the new system, I got to play my heavy and still have a chance to earn the items. Sure, I hated getting items that I already had and not getting the brand new toys for the sniper and spy, but I understood what Valve was trying to do. I also see how frustrated a player could get by not getting the items through the achievement system. I personally had enough achievements to have all 3 sniper items, but only had 1 due to the random drop system. I saw the benefit to both systems and also saw how each system was flawed. The reaction from the Team Fortress 2 community was a little more one sided then mine.

Valve stated that this update to the unlockable system was due to the demand from most of the Team Fortress 2 community wanting to have more access to the items. The reaction on Valve’s own Team Fortress 2 forums were telling a different story. The majority of the postings on the forums from community members were extremely critical of Valve’s new system, comparing it to the drop system from a very successful MMORPG. It seemed that Valve may have misread the desires of their Team Fortress 2 players in regards to item unlockables.

So, what do you do if you are Valve? Well, give the people both. As of May 29th, Team Fortress 2 players will now be granted the random unlockable items, that also include hats, but will also be able to obtain their items through the nerfed milestone achievement system. The milestones now require far less achievements to unlock. I logged in on Friday and received all of the items that I’ve been missing since the beginning of the update. I see this as the best of both worlds, you now have two paths to reach your unlockables, the achievement system or the random drop system.