Misunderstandings of #FixTF2

[ItalianHerbs&Cheese]

"It's no different from #SaveTF2" - No, it is different, everyone who signs the petition on save.tf will have their names printed and then delivered to Valve. It's a physical object that can't be easily ignored.

"Valve will still ignore this" - Absolutely not. Although the premise of #SaveTf2 was to get rid of cheaters and make the game playable again, now, bot hosters have been committing actual crimes, such as impersonating other people, launching DDoS attacks, and one individual fighting against bots was swatted. Because these are actual crimes, Valve has to step in or else they look like an extremely neglectful company.

"The crimes that bot hosters commit are out of Valve's control" - Not exactly. Although this type of activity can happen outside of the game, removing the bots entirely would greatly mitigate this because hosters are only attacking people fighting against bots. With them removed, people won't be able to fight against the bots because there's no bots to fight, meaning no targets to harass, meaning that the hosters can't do anything. Hosters attacking people regardless of bots is something that Valve can't control but the attacks in TF2 will be halted.

"Go play on community servers then" - That's stupid. Community servers are relatively cheater-free and have much more moderation, however, telling everyone to go play on community servers won't work. Firstly, community servers are strictly different from casual. Secondly, community servers have ping issues depending on the location of the player. Thirdly, getting all players to play on only community servers would be impossible because there's no arrow on the main menu telling people to go play on community servers, so there will still be people for bots to harass. Fourthly, hosters can run bots at virtually no expense so even if they get bored they still won't turn them off. Finally, this isn't how TF2 is meant to be played, the official servers should be playable and people shouldn't have to go to servers made by the community to play the game.

Take these points as opinions of facts, idc, I just want people to understand the issue so that they don't make an extreme point about it

Extra Stuff:
- The waste of paper issue is the least of our concerns but it should be noted that recycling plants exist and burning them would be a big safety hazard, worst case scenario, the paper goes in the trash.
- My point about Community servers having ping issues was taken from someone opposing the move to Community servers so it's not very credible but it should still be noted.
- Concerns about hosters committing crimes being directed at Valve is because all of this stemmed from Valve's negligence. (Bots were able to grow > people got angry at the bots > started an opposition > hosters got angry at them > attacked them) I agree that Valve is in not responsible for these crimes but they're indirectly responsible for it.
- How people often explain why moving to community servers will help is that the hosters will get bored and eventually stop running bots in casual. Most of my points still align with this but it should also be added that even if everyone moves to community servers, even if hosters get bored, even if they stop running bots, we won't be able to return to casual. Assuming that you don' want to stay on community servers forever, bots will still be present. Hosters can run them forever at little expense, and if they shut them down, they can just turn them on again when people go back, making this movement pointless.
- #FixTF2 is arguably a low-expense movement so what's the harm in trying to do it? It either works or it doesn't, it's not like this movement is killing people.
- If you still side with the move to community servers movement, then maybe there could be some middle ground. If #FixTF2 fails and people just give up, then everyone could go to community servers.
- CONTROVERSIAL OPINION: at the end of the day, Valve has three options. The first one is to follow through with #FixTF2, remove the bots and give TF2 some love. The second one is to do nothing, leave TF2 to rot and slowly the player base will die out and TF2 will not give them any profit (Before you say that bots will give them money, the only reason bots exist is to get attention and with nobody to harass it's practically pointless). The third and most controversial option is to. . . well. . . pull the plug. (These are just the options I care about, of course there are others)

[Tutu 🤍™🖤 ~^^)]

1. adding extra step of annoying people and harassing them with rebranded savetf2 objects to force them to fix the game they are not obligated to maintain nor update is really different towards the spectrum of badness

they also decide the "should" matter, not you

2. we will see about that

3. yes exactly
also, rather very convenient situations, or its just exploiting the victims to push their agenda

4. not it isnt community servers are freedom and superior in every way
casual is just a convenience store
first itz good cuz new and fresh experience and there are casual-like servers
second is just exaggeration
third team fortress players choose to be roleplaying with bots instead of solving their problems, and it is not comparable to real life situations

Originally posted by Tutu has #SavedTF2:

Community servers aren't anywhere as bad as people make them look like they are, TF2 started off with just community servers.

Community servers are better, because they are freedom, and kind of like sandbox thing, in terms of the fact server owners can shape them almost however they want, and provide fresh and unique experiences, and they have many, MANY times in the past.

Casual is just a mythological convenience store.
People need to let go of their thought that TF2 is just Casual, it does not matter as much as people believe it does.

It's just roleplay at this point.

fourth is blatantly wrong it does cost more than you think, and we cant tell for sure
finallly, your opinion

rocket science bless

[Tutu 🤍™🖤 ~^^)]

Originally posted by Tutu has #SavedTF2:

1. adding extra step of annoying people and harassing them with rebranded savetf2 objects to force them to fix the game they are not obligated to maintain nor update is really different towards the spectrum of badness

they also decide the "should" matter, not you

2. we will see about that

3. yes exactly
also, rather very convenient situations, or its just exploiting the victims to push their agenda

4. not it isnt community servers are freedom and superior in every way
casual is just a convenience store
first itz good cuz new and fresh experience and there are casual-like servers
second is just exaggeration
third team fortress players choose to be roleplaying with bots instead of solving their problems, and it is not comparable to real life situations

Originally posted by Tutu has #SavedTF2:

Community servers aren't anywhere as bad as people make them look like they are, TF2 started off with just community servers.

Community servers are better, because they are freedom, and kind of like sandbox thing, in terms of the fact server owners can shape them almost however they want, and provide fresh and unique experiences, and they have many, MANY times in the past.

Casual is just a mythological convenience store.
People need to let go of their thought that TF2 is just Casual, it does not matter as much as people believe it does.

It's just roleplay at this point.

fourth is blatantly wrong it does cost more than you think, and we cant tell for sure
finallly, your opinion

rocket science bless

alzoo ur thread feels weird but whatever im unsubbin now

[.°• Sheep ༄𖦹]

"It is a physical object that can't be easily ignored." Yes it can, actually. Petitions are very easy to ignore. They're hilariously useless unless the person/group you're petitioning agreed to the terms beforehand (ex: "If you get x number of signatures we'll do [blank].").

If Valve cared about looking like an "extremely neglectful company" we wouldn't be in the situation we're in. They don't care, and as long as #fixTF2 figureheads like Weezy actively discourage you from boycotting monetarily (the only strategy Valve would actually respond to) they never will.

There is not a single actual argument here as to why you shouldn't play on community servers. They're not confusing or difficult to use (seriously, they're not) and "ping issues" are present no matter how you play TF2 lmao.

[BV9 (literal cat)]

gem post

[ItalianHerbs&Cheese]

Originally posted by Smurgle:

"It is a physical object that can't be easily ignored." Yes it can, actually. Petitions are very easy to ignore. They're hilariously useless unless the person/group you're petitioning agreed to the terms beforehand (ex: "If you get x number of signatures we'll do [blank].").

If Valve cared about looking like an "extremely neglectful company" we wouldn't be in the situation we're in. They don't care, and as long as #fixTF2 figureheads like Weezy actively discourage you from boycotting monetarily (the only strategy Valve would actually respond to) they never will.

There is not a single actual argument here as to why you shouldn't play on community servers. They're not confusing or difficult to use (seriously, they're not) and "ping issues" are present no matter how you play TF2 lmao.

I'll let you have your own opinions about petitions but just know that if someone showed up to your house and gave a list of people harmed by your negligence you wouldn't push it aside, would you?

At the beginning of the bot crisis, sure, they're cheaters and aren't too big of a threat so I'm not surprised Valve ignored #SaveTF2, but as soon as crimes are linked to a big company's game, that does not help their image at all, that's why people are trying to spread awareness and make sure that Valve is tied to this.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't play on community servers, I'm saying that they won't effectively stop the bot crisis, neither am I saying that they're difficult to use.

[moltzer]

Originally posted by ItalianHerbs&Cheese:

"It's no different from #SaveTF2" - No, it is different, everyone who signs the petition on save.tf will have their names printed and then delivered to Valve. It's a physical object that can't be easily ignored.

They will be thrown in the incinerator as soon as they arrive.

"Valve will still ignore this" - Absolutely not. Although the premise of #SaveTf2 was to get rid of cheaters and make the game playable again, now, bot hosters have been committing actual crimes, such as impersonating other people, launching DDoS attacks, and one individual fighting against bots was swatted. Because these are actual crimes, Valve has to step in or else they look like an extremely neglectful company.

Already addressed in the Terms & Conditions, unless they decide to make a super duper special exception. Additionally, their current warhorse and main source of profit outside of Steam is CS(GO)2, meaning that CS2 players make a major portion of the Valve-game-consumer population. CS2 players, who would be expected to know what happens regarding other Valve games, don't care about TF2 or what happens here and much less do people who don't play Valve games. Furthermore, they are already seen as neglectful (have been for years) and literally nothing happens or will ever happen to them. A little drop in profits of the infinite money machine that is called Steam has never (and will never) affected them. I realize I went a little off-topic, but this is just to put into perspective how little TF2 is cared about by outsiders.

"The crimes that bot hosters commit are out of Valve's control" - Not exactly. Although this type of activity can happen outside of the game, removing the bots entirely would greatly mitigate this because hosters are only attacking people fighting against bots. With them removed, people won't be able to fight against the bots because there's no bots to fight, meaning no targets to harass, meaning that the hosters can't do anything. Hosters attacking people regardless of bots is something that Valve can't control but the attacks in TF2 will be halted.

Yes, because they can eliminate the bots with the press of a button and the attacks would magically stop once the bots would be gone.

"Go play on community servers then" - That's stupid. Community servers are relatively cheater-free and have much more moderation, however, telling everyone to go play on community servers won't work. Firstly, community servers are strictly different from casual. Secondly, community servers have ping issues depending on the location of the player. Thirdly, getting all players to play on only community servers would be impossible because there's no arrow on the main menu telling people to go play on community servers, so there will still be people for bots to harass. Fourthly, hosters can run bots at virtually no expense so even if they get bored they still won't turn them off. Finally, this isn't how TF2 is meant to be played, the official servers should be playable and people shouldn't have to go to servers made by the community to play the game.

Firstly, not necessarily. Quickplay had both officially- and community-hosted servers which were both essentially the same when it came to core game settings. Secondly, this is a redundant point as so do people on official servers, which is why people should join servers in their regions and are automatically assigned to their regions in official servers. Thirdly, their problem. Finally, it was literally the way the game was meant to be played (if you take the official server/community server ratio from the Quickplay era into account). In fact, it'd be more effective to #Save TF2 than the entire movement if everyone was forced to play on community servers because they actually have working anticheats.

[Michael De Santa]

Originally posted by ItalianHerbs&Cheese:

"It's no different from #SaveTF2" - No, it is different, everyone who signs the petition on save.tf will have their names printed and then delivered to Valve. It's a physical object that can't be easily ignored.

Not true. Past SaveTF2s went as followed
-A day was planned out to spam social media with unfunny memes and “posters”
-People petitioned for the game
-All was done with the goal to exterminate bots

This movement is going exactly the same, the only thing that’s different is the name. The movement remains untouched.

"Valve will still ignore this" - Absolutely not. Although the premise of #SaveTf2 was to get rid of cheaters and make the game playable again, now, bot hosters have been committing actual crimes, such as impersonating other people, launching DDoS attacks, and one individual fighting against bots was swatted. Because these are actual crimes, Valve has to step in or else they look like an extremely neglectful company.

Have you ever gotten spam mails? What do you do with them? You chuck them in the trash. The only thing you are doing is killing off more trees with useless pages of botted names and joe mama jokes. Petitions, physical and digital are useless. The only conceivable way you can get it to work is if the company really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. TripAdvisor for example covered up sexual assault and abuse for customers and only when a petition got 700,000 signatures did they take action.

Yes swatting is illegal and is scummy, the voice actor for this character got swatted, but it’s mostly unrelated to tf2. Valve really isn’t the responsible one for the swatting. It’s like if someone based himself around the game Mario Kart and swatted a guy who beat him in a race by looking up his personal information online. Nintendo is not at fault here and nor is Valve. These are actions that happen outside the game. Also impersonation isn’t something illegal, it’s only illegal if you impersonate a government official or a police officer.

"The crimes that bot hosters commit are out of Valve's control" - Not exactly. Although this type of activity can happen outside of the game, removing the bots entirely would greatly mitigate this because hosters are only attacking people fighting against bots. With them removed, people won't be able to fight against the bots because there's no bots to fight, meaning no targets to harass, meaning that the hosters can't do anything. Hosters attacking people regardless of bots is something that Valve can't control but the attacks in TF2 will be halted.

Hypothetically let’s say the TF2 team banned the bots. What now? They can’t bot in the game, but they 100% can still commit cyber crimes if they wanted too. I don’t understand this point, it’s like if you guys think banning is a forever jail. Valve won’t do anything against xXL33TH4XX0R69Xx because most likely the crime was committed outside of the game. You can’t do anything illegal in tf2 (unless if it’s spreading Control Points in game) which the bots do not do. Hosters can still 100% attack people outside the game, and research about them if their information is public. Trying to make valve the accountable one makes no sense since the accountable ones are the hosters who did the crime.

"Go play on community servers then" - That's stupid. Community servers are relatively cheater-free and have much more moderation, however, telling everyone to go play on community servers won't work. Firstly, community servers are strictly different from casual. Secondly, community servers have ping issues depending on the location of the player. Thirdly, getting all players to play on only community servers would be impossible because there's no arrow on the main menu telling people to go play on community servers, so there will still be people for bots to harass. Fourthly, hosters can run bots at virtually no expense so even if they get bored they still won't turn them off. Finally, this isn't how TF2 is meant to be played, the official servers should be playable and people shouldn't have to go to servers made by the community to play the game.

Gather around the campfire folks, allow me to tell you the history of this game, and community servers. I may not have been the oldest player in the book, but I definitely do know some, and they happily exchanged this story with me. Let’s take a Time Machine back to the 2000s. Valve games never had “official severs.” Essentially, these games ran on community servers. CounterStrike: Source does not have dedicated official servers, but it has community servers. Valve just hosted the ability to connect to these servers via the server menu. All servers were ran by someone from their computer or from large scale servers. When Team Fortress 2 released in 2007…. It used this same system! People loved it as well, because the community servers were the lifeblood of this game. Community servers was pretty much how everyone played and the game was able to survive and do well in this era. It all changed though, when the dreaded Uber Update arrived. Making the game F2P will essentially flood the game with new players, and since most of them were children, valve wanted to make their job easier, so community servers were replaced with Quickplay! This change was so radical, that many original players, players who had been there from the start left and never came back, because this update slaughtered a lot of community servers and killed community server culture.

Taking the Time Machine back to today, and now we are in a state where the valve servers are unplayable, and it’s clear as day that valve doesn’t want to fix them, so community servers are a great option and even solution to the bots.
1. Not true. Community servers can easily run casual mode and there are plenty of servers that offer the casual experience.
2. Yes, like official servers. Literally just find the server that’s nearest to you, either from their site or the server browser (though I agree that valve should fix servers that fake ping). Official servers can put you in a region where you cannot play because of ping.
3. There will not be any bots on community servers. Most will get easily banned by the anti cheats community servers run

But yeah you are right, it’s impossible to get more vanilla/good community servers and people to play them. If only there was a movement that reached a lot of players and got on trending with the power of community figures that every tf2 player can see…. wait a minute!

Pretty much why everyone in the forum and most realistic people hate #FixTF2 is because it could easily be a community effort to not only get more people on community servers, but also more servers made in more regions and better servers. Having community figures saying this is our solution and the future could annihilate the bot problem easily. Let the bots invade casual mode, while everyone chills out in the moderation of the server that bans the bots the moment they join.

But literally every FixTF2er always say this is wrong and pull out so many reasons that are either untrue, or could easily be solved with the power of the community and this large movement. We don’t need valve to spoonfeed us, we can easily put on our big boy pants and avoid the bots

[collapsingchairs]

"bot hosters have been committing actual crimes, such as impersonating other people"

Didnt weezy, the guy who's leading this movement, impersonate that one mvm player for his video? Pretty sure he even admitted to it, if thats the case then he's no better than those bot hosters. and here I thought this fixtf2 movement would actually have a chance lmao

[Luigi]

It’s so nice of ShorK to give free firewood for Valve in the form of paper, however why would he do this in June? It’s so hot outside, he should’ve done this on winter so the firewood is actually useful.

[Rahk]

If i try to find a server thats as vanilla as possible, 24 players, Payload/CPs/KoTH, in my region, I only see 1 server and it's an uncletopia server that's always full. There are not a good amount of servers that offer a vanilla experience when my only option is 1 server that's always full and I get dropped for slot reservation every time i somehow do get in. Casual is also where the majority of the playerbase likes to play and where new players to the game will end up, I know caring about the new player experience isn't what a lot of people on this forum want but it's probably a good thing for the game if more people can enjoy it in it's simplest form. No one has made any servers that are pure vanilla and keep complaining about people trying to make casual better when they themselves don't pony up and actually make community servers better. In most regions community servers suck and do not offer what most players want so instead of being the change they want to see they want to hijack a movements reach to try and spearhead it into something else because they can't do anything but complain that no one else is doing what they want. Make the damn servers first and maybe you would actually get support.

[ItalianHerbs&Cheese]

Originally posted by Rahk:

If i try to find a server thats as vanilla as possible, 24 players, Payload/CPs/KoTH, in my region, I only see 1 server and it's an uncletopia server that's always full. There are not a good amount of servers that offer a vanilla experience when my only option is 1 server that's always full and I get dropped for slot reservation every time i somehow do get in. Casual is also where the majority of the playerbase likes to play and where new players to the game will end up, I know caring about the new player experience isn't what a lot of people on this forum want but it's probably a good thing for the game if more people can enjoy it in it's simplest form. No one has made any servers that are pure vanilla and keep complaining about people trying to make casual better when they themselves don't pony up and actually make community servers better. In most regions community servers suck and do not offer what most players want so instead of being the change they want to see they want to hijack a movements reach to try and spearhead it into something else because they can't do anything but complain that no one else is doing what they want. Make the damn servers first and maybe you would actually get support.

Very good points. Not sure if it's entirely true but Community servers do lack the raw TF2 experience that most people play for.

[Rahk]

Originally posted by ItalianHerbs&Cheese:

Originally posted by Rahk:

If i try to find a server thats as vanilla as possible, 24 players, Payload/CPs/KoTH, in my region, I only see 1 server and it's an uncletopia server that's always full. There are not a good amount of servers that offer a vanilla experience when my only option is 1 server that's always full and I get dropped for slot reservation every time i somehow do get in. Casual is also where the majority of the playerbase likes to play and where new players to the game will end up, I know caring about the new player experience isn't what a lot of people on this forum want but it's probably a good thing for the game if more people can enjoy it in it's simplest form. No one has made any servers that are pure vanilla and keep complaining about people trying to make casual better when they themselves don't pony up and actually make community servers better. In most regions community servers suck and do not offer what most players want so instead of being the change they want to see they want to hijack a movements reach to try and spearhead it into something else because they can't do anything but complain that no one else is doing what they want. Make the damn servers first and maybe you would actually get support.

Very good points. Not sure if it's entirely true but Community servers do lack the raw TF2 experience that most people play for.

This is on top of the fact a lot of players who get into the game have no idea community servers even exist. If I was going to host servers I would have some servers that are pure vanilla with specific servers for specific gamemodes and map voting every 3 rounds. Other servers that only go live and host seasonal maps when that specific holiday event is live and a few servers with vanilla rulesets but on custom maps that fit the base games mapping style. A few server hosters already do it this way but they often add junk like RTD, or make it cross-gamemode or have annoying sourcemod plugins that clutter the screen every 45 minutes or change game rules like random crits or random spread; regardless of your opinion of random crits or spread it is on by default and for it to be truly vanilla it must be vanilla to every metric. That and there are people who want them on so it attracts more of a casual audience instead of a competitive one. Everything past that is marketing it to casual players. Oh and keeping autobalancing, making it a vote is worthless. It may annoy people but i've never seen someone leave a server for getting autobalanced.

[moltzer]

Originally posted by Rahk:

Originally posted by ItalianHerbs&Cheese:

Very good points. Not sure if it's entirely true but Community servers do lack the raw TF2 experience that most people play for.

This is on top of the fact a lot of players who get into the game have no idea community servers even exist. If I was going to host servers I would have some servers that are pure vanilla with specific servers for specific gamemodes and map voting every 3 rounds. Other servers that only go live and host seasonal maps when that specific holiday event is live and a few servers with vanilla rulesets but on custom maps that fit the base games mapping style. A few server hosters already do it this way but they often add junk like RTD, or make it cross-gamemode or have annoying sourcemod plugins that clutter the screen every 45 minutes or change game rules like random crits or random spread; regardless of your opinion of random crits or spread it is on by default and for it to be truly vanilla it must be vanilla to every metric. That and there are people who want them on so it attracts more of a casual audience instead of a competitive one. Everything past that is marketing it to casual players. Oh and keeping autobalancing, making it a vote is worthless. It may annoy people but i've never seen someone leave a server for getting autobalanced.

There definitely needs to be more visibility for community servers, but the game is in abandonware state and nothing will be changed in the main menu now. The only hope for them is to explore the community outside of the game or discover the server browser by themselves, neither of which might happen if they encounter bot-filled servers and assume that's just how the game is now and quit.

[Kevin Crabcakes]

Originally posted by ItalianHerbs&Cheese:

I'll let you have your own opinions about petitions but just know that if someone showed up to your house and gave a list of people harmed by your negligence you wouldn't push it aside, would you?

Yes the Valve employees who sleep and live 24/7 at Valve HQ
If somebody came to my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ department/grocery store and started protesting about how mr. kroger is the devil I probably wouldn't care and then my supervisors would make me dispose of them

[SharkChew]

Originally posted by ItalianHerbs&Cheese:

"It's no different from #SaveTF2" - No, it is different, everyone who signs the petition on save.tf will have their names printed and then delivered to Valve. It's a physical object that can't be easily ignored.

"Valve will still ignore this" - Absolutely not. Although the premise of #SaveTf2 was to get rid of cheaters and make the game playable again, now, bot hosters have been committing actual crimes, such as impersonating other people, launching DDoS attacks, and one individual fighting against bots was swatted. Because these are actual crimes, Valve has to step in or else they look like an extremely neglectful company.

"The crimes that bot hosters commit are out of Valve's control" - Not exactly. Although this type of activity can happen outside of the game, removing the bots entirely would greatly mitigate this because hosters are only attacking people fighting against bots. With them removed, people won't be able to fight against the bots because there's no bots to fight, meaning no targets to harass, meaning that the hosters can't do anything. Hosters attacking people regardless of bots is something that Valve can't control but the attacks in TF2 will be halted.

"Go play on community servers then" - That's stupid. Community servers are relatively cheater-free and have much more moderation, however, telling everyone to go play on community servers won't work. Firstly, community servers are strictly different from casual. Secondly, community servers have ping issues depending on the location of the player. Thirdly, getting all players to play on only community servers would be impossible because there's no arrow on the main menu telling people to go play on community servers, so there will still be people for bots to harass. Fourthly, hosters can run bots at virtually no expense so even if they get bored they still won't turn them off. Finally, this isn't how TF2 is meant to be played, the official servers should be playable and people shouldn't have to go to servers made by the community to play the game.

Take these points as opinions of facts, idc, I just want people to understand the issue so that they don't make an extreme point about it

Extra Stuff:
- The waste of paper issue is the least of our concerns but it should be noted that recycling plants exist and burning them would be a big safety hazard, worst case scenario, the paper goes in the trash.
- My point about Community servers having ping issues was taken from someone opposing the move to Community servers so it's not very credible but it should still be noted.
- Concerns about hosters committing crimes being directed at Valve is because all of this stemmed from Valve's negligence. (Bots were able to grow > people got angry at the bots > started an opposition > hosters got angry at them > attacked them) I agree that Valve is in not responsible for these crimes but they're indirectly responsible for it.
- How people often explain why moving to community servers will help is that the hosters will get bored and eventually stop running bots in casual. Most of my points still align with this but it should also be added that even if everyone moves to community servers, even if hosters get bored, even if they stop running bots, we won't be able to return to casual. Assuming that you don' want to stay on community servers forever, bots will still be present. Hosters can run them forever at little expense, and if they shut them down, they can just turn them on again when people go back, making this movement pointless.
- #FixTF2 is arguably a low-expense movement so what's the harm in trying to do it? It either works or it doesn't, it's not like this movement is killing people.
- If you still side with the move to community servers movement, then maybe there could be some middle ground. If #FixTF2 fails and people just give up, then everyone could go to community servers.
- CONTROVERSIAL OPINION: at the end of the day, Valve has three options. The first one is to follow through with #FixTF2, remove the bots and give TF2 some love. The second one is to do nothing, leave TF2 to rot and slowly the player base will die out and TF2 will not give them any profit (Before you say that bots will give them money, the only reason bots exist is to get attention and with nobody to harass it's practically pointless). The third and most controversial option is to. . . well. . . pull the plug. (These are just the options I care about, of course there are others)

stage 3 - bargaining