Conflicting Communities: Of Heisters and Mercenaries

So as most of you have noticed (though probably not) there has been a distinct lack of posts made by me on SPUF. You can tell from the lack of shitposts made by a certain PootNameHere. Why is that? Well, the answer is simpler than you think. I have become bored of TF2. My attention span for this game literally died out. Sure, I could blame EOTL for driving me away, sure, I could blame Valve for flooding this game with a never ending amount of hats, but no. The reason is, once again, simpler than you think. It’s all about the devs. After I decided that Valve simply doesn’t give a bonus duck about TF2 anymore, I decided to move onto my second go-to boredom-killer. Payday 2.

Now say what you want about Payday 2 or the way Overkill handles DLCs, because that is not the main point I’m trying to bring up here. TF2 had free updates while Payday 2 charges about 5 bucks for DLCs so you can’t really compare them. What I’m trying to say is that during the game’s lifetime, the devs have been keeping a close ear to the ground to hear what the community wants and doesn’t want, and so far, it only helped the game grow. Sure, Overkill did pull some dodgy tricks when it comes to DLC releases and content being locked behind a paywall, but they mostly learned from their mistakes. See, Overkill has a history of not messing around with the fanbase, many of the suggestions made by the fans actually ended up in the game, such as the amount of given XP being determined by objectives, rather than the flat XP the heist itself gives, or the ability to switch firing modes. Not to mention, most of the game’s storyline has been shaped by fanon. If it wasn’t for the whole #bailouthoxton petition, we would have probably never seen our favorite British heister in the game at all.

Now, the next part about Payday 2 is the modding. “But ShekelWanker! TF2 also has modding! What are you talking about ya twat?!” I hear you cry. Well, put down those torches and pitchforks as I’m about to explain. See, TF2 works on the Source engine, which, as we all know, is very VERY moddable. However, Payday 2 runs on the Diesel engine, which means that it’s barely, if at all moddable, because of the way all the files are compiled and locked, so you can’t just open up the Payday 2 folder with VTFEdit and edit textures from there, no, you have to almost decompile the texture you want to edit completely. It’s gotten a bit easier over the years since Overkill fully accepted modding in Payday 2, but it can still be a bit of a pain for people, even for just installing a mod because the process is so different. But it just goes to show how involved the community can be in a game to go as far as to decompile the game files just to modify the escape van to look like the Mystery Machine. Yes, that’s a thing.

Now, keep in mind what I just told you and think about TF2. When, in the recent years, did Valve give us something we wanted without corrupting our wish in a completely wicked way? “Oh, you want a map workshop? Sure! But we’re not gonna host them on our Valve servers. Oh, it’s pretty much useless since Quickplay still directs players to OUR servers instead of the ones on which you host the aforementioned custom maps? Well, sorry. Deal with it.” Valve constantly says they’re looking at the Steam forums, but so what if we don’t see any of those suggestions happen? I’ve seen some awesome ideas posted on the Steam forums, but they all went with the wind because Valve effectively ditched SPUF in favor of SCUD. “But ShekelWanker! Overkill are jews because they want 5 dollars per DLC! Tis all a cash-grab!” I hear you cry out again. Well, let me ask you something. What did you get for paying 5 dollars for EOTL? Ducks. Cosmetic ducks. You didn’t get an awesome new map or new slick weapons. It was ducks all the way down (well maybe save for that melee reskin, apparently in today’s standards having a reskin is good enough). Let’s take a look at a more recent case. Valve wanted us to pay for mods, it only affected Skyrim, sure, but they still thought they could get away with paying for mods. Mods.

So, in conclusion, I think I’d rather stick with a company which takes off 5 dollars worth of my lunch money per month and gives me and the community something nice in return, rather than get used and disappointed for free. But hey, it’s all optional, right? Sorry, Valve. I used to love you to the end. I own most, if not all of your games, but seeing you become the next EA is just a little bit disheartening.

ShekelWanker signing off, take care, ya twats.