Why all Attempts of #SaveTF2 are Doomed To Fail (Expanded and Enhanced): What We as a Community can do Differently

[Cat_Soldier]

Warning! This is going to be yet another semi-long thread written by some dude in college with free time. If you do not want to read or argue upon it I suggest turning back now or skip to the TL;DR at the end

Previous thread here
TLDR of the previous thread: #SaveTF2 will fail, and will always fail, community servers will be superior in every regards.

Section 7: Ah ♥♥♥♥ here we go again

Some may ask me why am I beating an already dead horse here. I myself am asking the same question. I thought the horse of savetf2 died already and everyone admitted that it failed, even some youtubers, however it seems like recently there has been a lot of people planning to make another one of these somehow reviving the dead horse.

Previously I made the past thread to try to convince people that the second savetf2 will do nothing, in which I explained what happened and truth about SaveTF2 about really being a cloutfest movement for youtubers that ultimately achieved nothing in the short run due to the TF2 Community dropping everything when valve says one word. It looks like these effects didn't enter the minds of some, so I will reiterate what went wrong with SaveTF2 and what we can actually do differently if we want to make a difference in the game.

Section 8: The Team Fortress 2 Cycle

You may have seen this before as it has been the cycle of this game for the past 6 years, but here it is.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3136954878

I may have brushed on this topic in my old thread, but never went into deeper detail about it. The VALVe cycle, or the TF2 Cycle as I call it has been how they have treated this game for the past 6 years. Ever since they gave up on TF2 in jungle inferno and Blue Moon, we have been throughout this cycle constantly, yet people never seem to notice. Any form of communication typically will end up in this cycle. This is the exactly what happened with savetf2, and it will keep happening. With savetf2, it went something like this:

1. Valve was radio silent on the bots
2. Community got fed up, youtubers created savetf2 for their personal gain and to try to "speak" to valve
3. Valve made a PR tweet
4. community forgets about savetf2 and shuts up and thinks the bot problem got solved

Valve will probably just sync up the item servers or just make another tweet saying "We are working on an update!" or try to make another summer update blog post to try to distract the community and get them to be quiet. Typically these are the months that these outcries happen because these months are the "update" drought months where people arent enticed by their new lootboxes.

Section Number 9: People are just gonna use this to ride off clout

People are going to take advantage of this uprise and use it to farm likes, views, attention, etc by pretending to care about the game while shutting down anyone who thinks otherwise. At this point people are using SaveTF2 because they are either conditioned to think this is the only solution (thanks youtube man), or they are using it to farm clout. Much like what most of the original youtubers who made the movement used it for, people want to gain that popularity and fame of being "The Ones Who Saved TF2!!!" which is evident by the way they act (claiming they got the summer update because of the movement, saying the bots are a major world war, etc).

Essentially you are just advertising for someone else, because at its core thats what SaveTF2 was about. I've already misproven it was about "Spreading Awareness!" since at this point everyone and valve are aware of the bots and the issues that plague this game, but choose not to act upon it no matter what is brought up.

Section 10: This "New Version" is even more Unorganized

There is almost no backing, no plan, or any course of action at all. Its just "Lets go protest! And make these images of us fighting bots!" without any real plan on how to execute it. No date, no time, nothing at all. Unorganized protests usually end up in failure,

Some call it "SaveTF2-2024" while others just say its SaveTF2, yet no one can really reach a consensus. Without proper organization, an already doomed to fail movement is now completely screwed out of the gate.

Section 11: What Can We Do?

11.1 Community Server Awareness

In my previous thread I talked about community servers, however to address the elephant in the room, many of them don't have players, or have players who want to join but refuse to join. Instead of relying on a multimillion company to do something when they have done nothing, then its time for the community to do something. Yes it sucks that we have to do VALVe's work, but at the same time its one of the best solutions we have. Community servers worked back then and I do not see how they cannot work today. All we need is more community server awareness, more people opening and trying out casual like community servers, and the overall boogeymen of community servers to dissapear (read previous thread for more detail)

11.2 Stop Spending Money on the Mann Co Store and Community Market

Despite TF2 not being a massive money maker, by spending money on the game at this state is just encouraging valve to do absolutely nothing. By doing those "UNBOXING 1000 TF2 CASES!" videos, you are just telling valve "Hey good job!" A full on boycott of tf2 will not completely tumble valve down since they own steam, cs2, and dota 2, however it will definitely impact something. Not saying that this would 100% solve all issues, but it would tell valve to at least put some sort of effort into trying to fix the problems. And for people wondering, even if valve were to "shut down servers" like people like to say to try to counter this, they never shut down servers for their previous games and we have community servers.

11.3 Charity Stream/Event

Instead of spamming others about how "wholesome" the community is, how about we actually be wholesome for once. I know charity streams and events already exist, but what if we just had one on the scale that was the original #SaveTF2. That in my opinion is how you raise the awareness of everyone outside a community, not by spamming a meaningless hashtag that does nothing. Instead of people knowing tf2 as the game that has people who spam a hashtag, why not demonstrate that this community actually has a good side and heart with a massive charity stream. It sends the message "despite all the issues, we still love and appreciate this game and want to give out even though we are abandoned." Even if valve ignores this, we would still make a difference somewhere instead of just wasting our times spamming a hashtag.

Finale... Again

Once again, spamming a hashtag on twitter that was built around giving attention to content creators rather than players is going to inevitably fail. Even if valve were to make a response, we would just initiate this cycle all over again, so its just best to just give up hope that VALVe will return and just do our own thing. We can spread awareness about community servers and build our own servers instead of relying on VALVes negligence, or we can protest in other manners. Trying to reach out to valve as a player is impossible and will just be met with a PR response. It's not worth the time and effort to make another SaveTF2 when it will just fail like the original. Lets put effort into something else again.

TL;DR: We will just repeat the Valve cycle, nothing will get done and people will just ride off its "success" when valve responds with a pr move or a random unrelated update. Community servers remain the best option and should have awareness on them spread instead, also more """effective""" forms of protest that isnt just spamming words at a wall exists.

[RedReimu]

Good thread.

[BIG MONKEY]

too bad a boycott is impossible thanks to dota and csgo players being the biggest consoomers known to man kind and love wasting money on virtual items more than tf2 fans(i think its a fetish)

[Blackstar]

Nothing but facts

If only the playerbase could think rationally...

[Eighteen-Counts Trevor]

Valve pls pin this thread

[Rando the Crit Clown]

I'm gonna random crit the dead horse I think

[Cat_Soldier]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

I'm gonna random crit the dead horse I think

mark this as the answer please

[green sheep]

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier | #KillSaveTF2:

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

I'm gonna random crit the dead horse I think

mark this as the answer please

this is your thread

[Graceful Jabberwocky]

Originally posted by drunk driver:

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier | #KillSaveTF2:

mark this as the answer please

this is your thread

Mark this as the answer, please.

[Graceful Jabberwocky]

Also good thread

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier | #KillSaveTF2:

get the m to be quiet

typo detected, entire post is not worth reading and blatantly incorrect

[Cat_Soldier]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier | #KillSaveTF2:

get the m to be quiet

typo detected, entire post is not worth reading and blatantly incorrect

Fixed

[The Impractical Engineer]

Insightful post, Cat Soldier! Hopefully now everyone can see your post of brilliance and recognise that the Save TF2 movement is what caused the bot crisis!

[toasterstudels]

Does anyone know of any community servers that are vanilla, random crits enabled? Every community server I join has some gimmick. If there was a community server that was the base game being hosted by someone else, populated by other gamers, that’s a great start

[ktulu84]

another irrefutable and undeniable statement firmly supported by credible sources from cat_soldier

This assertion rests on the bedrock of well-established truths, substantiated by relevant and trustworthy references, reinforcing its unassailable nature👏👏👏

[Luigi]

unfortunately the people who need to listen to this wont