So, recently, I quit TF2. Whenever people hear about it, they ask me why, and I have to explain it again and again. So, I have decided to make a lengthy blog entry on the matter that will cover everything nicely. So, where do I start?

What seems like 100 years ago, I first started playing Team Fortress 2. I had fun (the purpose of any game), socialized, and gradually got better at the game. As time went by, many changes were made to the game, and continue to be made today. These changes used to be excellent. Great weapons that added whole, new mechanics that meshed well into the game were added. Great new weapons were added. Decent-looking hats and miscs. got added, and getting one of those meant something, Gradually, the game started getting changes that seemed annoying, but tolerable. Such quick-fixes-for-being-horrible-at-the-game-but-still-wanting-kills, such as the Degreaser when paired with the Axtinguisher, and the Black Box. I played along. Trading became a thing. I first saw this as a good thing. Why shouldn't I? How could a means for players to trade items they don't want for items they do want become a bad thing? Either way, I continued playing. Skip to the pre-Meet the Medic hype. We knew the video was coming. It had been teased. We knew weapons were coming. Above all, were were hyped to see the video. Little did I know that its release would be so horribly tainted...

Team Fortress 2 went "Free to Play", and it right off the bat did what many feared would happen if it ever went "Free to Play": More weapons that allow people who refuse to learn how to play the game well (So, noobs)) to score kills regularly, aka skill crutches. It also brought another obnoxious pest with it: The Quick Fix. While this medigun does have some legitimate usefulness to it, the vast majority of the time, all it does is anger the one being healed because their medic's ubers are pretty much worthless.

But, I stuck with the game. On and off, I played. I saw more obnoxious weapons added. The Pomson, which allows Engineers to sap Medic ubercharges, breaking one of the core rules of the game in the process. The Spycicle, which allows spies to become immune to fire, and leave ugly ice statues laying around that clutter everything. But still, I played the game, on and off. I just shrugged off the horrible things like the Huntsman, the Sydney Sleeper, and other frustrating weapons, and went my merry way, all while Team Fortress 2's community became a disgustingly clear example of how human greed is ever-present.

Traders. Sites. An economy. Community. Based around greed. Innocent things like hats became the target of these ever-present players' fetishistic desire to accumulate wealth. Hats that aren't even real outside of the game being sold for extravagant amounts. An entire economy controlled by a few individuals. Out with the old "I have this hat I don't want that you do, and you have one you don't want that I do! Want to trade?", in with the new "omg ur a fuken poor and irish SCRUB! ur hat isnt even vintage searing plasma u fuken lowbaler aspie go suk a dyck". People spending hours hoarding items so they can obtain Bill's Hats, Earbuds, Max's Severed Heads, B.M.O.Cs and keys. Perverting what was once known as a great team-based FPS into a nauseating mess of a hoarding simulator.

Valve's shoddy, untested updates, the trading community becoming ever-present, the bugs from years ago that never got fixed all pile up. What was once something great is now something terrible. While there are traces of what made it good left, you cannot enjoy what is good without running into a dozen Huntsman snipers, getting body-shot-spammed by a Sydney Sleeper sniper, being Jarate + Bushwacka'd, having Liberty Launcher rockets spammed at you, being Degreaser + Axtinguished, being charged by a mini-critting nearly-invincible Phlogistinator Pyro, seeing ugly ice statues, being killed by the overpowered Enforcer, having your uber meter drained by a gun, adding to the insult because it's by what should be a support class and dying because your Medic was using the Quick-Fix. Not to mention certain items that make the characters look like an uncircumcised penis, among other artstyle-shattering bizarre choices in cosmetic item additions.

Maybe if there were an uprising in servers that ban the worst of the obnoxious weapons and the cosmetic items, my interest in playing the game would return. But at the time of posting this, I feel as if I have watched a good friend get addicted to meth and become a prostitute.