Although the game was released way back in 2007, Team Fortress 2 continues to boast one of the most dedicated fanbases in gaming. The developers at Valve have dropped a few updates for the title over the past few years, but many players feel as though the company’s support for the game is wildly lacking.
A whopping 340,000 players recently signed a petition calling on Valve to fix the title’s out-of-control bot problem, which has led to it being nearly impossible to find a match with only human opponents. Rather than simply shooting the devs a link, however, one player printed every single signature, compiling them into a physical book before delivering the tome to Valve headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.
“For the past five years, Team Fortress 2 has become nearly unplayable,” the petition reads. “The game’s official servers have been overrun by hordes of cheating aimbots while Valve has remained steadfast in their refusal to adequately tackle the problem. This lack of developer interference has thrown the game into a state of turmoil with seemingly no end in sight.”
The site also notes that as of July 1, Valve has taken extensive measures to fight the bot problem, but the issues may return if devs aren’t careful. “These efforts require persistent and continuous upkeep, otherwise we run the risk reverting back to a bot-infested status quo,” the website reads.
In July, Valve released a large update for Team Fortress 2, adding 10 new community maps, over 20 new “community-contributed items,” four new community-created taunts, and 38 new community-made Unusual effects, along with bug fixes and some stability improvements.
Team Fortress 2 was initially released for PC and Xbox 360 in 2007. It was later ported to the PlayStation 3. The title still remains one of the most-played games on Steam, with an average of 60,000 players.