I usually don't talk about the bot crisis in ways like this, but i feel like now's a better time than ever.

Yeah, I personally may have said the bots arent that big of a deal, but that's me personally, I didn't even play that much casual until recently, so I was in no spot to speak of the situation in that way, now that I have started playing more casual, well yes, they're still not much of an issue, but it may be based on the maps I play.

No matter how bad or mild your experience with bots may be, they're still a huge issue, they have plagued casual servers, said racist shit, spammed potentially dangerous links, promote botting, have sprayed CP, have tried blackmailing people such as Spikeymikey with threats (Click here for video of that happening.), and way more I may be forgetting while writing this, so yeah, they really need to be stopped.

Yet... valve does nothing and has still as of writing this have done absolutely nothing to fix this. They have only fixed bots once and even then they came back.

Valve does nothing to help this 10+ year old game they have put hard work and soul into over the years. They just abandoned the game in its time of need, I can understand having a hiatus from updates after the huge jungle inferno update, but doing nothing against the bots for 3 years is just unacceptable. Valve is a multi million dollar company that is well recognized, they need to take action, so spread the #SaveTF2 hashtag that's been going on to help to try and hopefully, HOPEFULLY, convince valve. I usually don't support hashtags on Gamejolt since they don't do anything, but this is different, the voice actor for medic is helping us, news outlets are helping us, and most of all, this hashtag isn't limited to Gamejolt, its going on twitter and reddit too, this hashtag has potential, Berd made a funni video about it (Click here for video.), Muselk (An ex-TFtuber.) made a post about it (Click here for post.), its even trending on twitter, normally I'd say hashtags don't do anything, but this is a special case, I feel like this could actually save tf2, or at least, get Valve to remember to at least communicate, like what SoundSmith said, communication is very important for game development, but Valve isn't even giving us THAT.

TF2 has been a huge game for me personally, even though I haven't been with it since the start and only got the community in like 2020 after seeing this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rys0B7-cow&ab_channel=Rabiosa and the "Meet the Amazing Team" videos created by Piemations (Click here for video combining all of the videos together.), this game has still made a huge impact on my life, no other game even has a chance at comparing to it. In just one year of playing this game since Summer 2021, I have loved this game to death and it has quickly became my favorite game of new time, the community is (usually) very welcoming, the fan content is amazing and hilarious, the mods are high effort, the community is huge and diverse, the game's community will come together when it needs to, like right now, and most importantly, this game helped me become friends with someone who means a LOT to my life now.

But these bots are one of the things I hate in this community, hell, you can't even call it a fault of the community because they're going against it and trying to "kill" TF2, which will never, EVER happen, even if the game dies or even shuts down, the community is still going to be very strong, the SFM animations, memes, and jokes will never die out even if the game does.

TF2 is a game like no other, it will never die.

Just stay hopeful, we WILL beat the bots eventually, someday they'll be admitting defeat in their mother's basements.

We just NEED to spread the word, we already have the hashtag trending on Twitter. So help, do your part, use the #SaveTF2 hashtag, spread it around on any social media platform, and be positive, don't look at this negatively like Zealot has. (Not saying he's bad, he's a cool youtuber, he's just too negative sometimes, but it's fine for him and anyone to have an opinion, do not attack him for not thinking this will do anything.)

We have a chance, we can do this.

sry if this felt a little out of character for me, I usually don't do long, serious posts like this, but this is a special occasion, so it calls for a special post, hopefully this hashtag does SOMETHING.