Since 2009, more and more additional weapons and cosmetic items were constantly being added to the game. The first method to get them was just time – people playing the game received the random drops while playing. Later it was complemented by an in-game trade, an in-game store, Steam trade for other games and their items, and finally – Steam Market with real money. At first some people used a small 3rd party app that connected to TF2 servers and allowed them to get items while idling without stressing their PCs much. Valve did not like the practice and people using 3rd party apps lost all their items, however simply running the TF2 game itself and sitting idle on servers remained a fair deal. Small and deadly achievement_idle has remained the most popular map in the game since then.
When TF2 went free2play, more people started idling on several Steam accounts at once to get more items, using the lightweight TF2 text mode which still allowed item drops. The appearance of Steam Market, where TF2 items could be sold for money (in Steam Wallet) added motivation for massive item farming. Some people started running thousands of TF2 accounts at once and selling items en-masse for profit (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/worldfarmersunited/discussions/0/864969953579613412/). It looks like Valve does not like this practice either, as some owners of idle farms had all their accounts banned.
The latest TF2 update (http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=11105) is going to make getting items harder for most idlers. The new measures ensure that only actively playing gamers will receive item drops. The requirements for drops are:
• Connection to VAC-enabled server (no cheat use)
• Manual responses to in-game notification after receiving an item
• Running only one instance of the game
• Not running TF2 in text mode
Not following these result in pausing the item drop in most cases, while using an external program to respond to in-game notification may be classified as cheating and will lead to a VAC ban. On a first glance these look like an effective solution against idling, especially mass idling with thousands of accounts. On the other hand these measures are definitely not an absolute solution, so active farmers are likely doing the cost and benefit analysis of more advanced methods at the moment. It will be interesting to see how much difference this will make for ordinary TF2 players and idlers in the coming months.
