Exploits = Ban.

[Aristotle]

well I'm not gonna argue further. You know my point of view and I'm not alone in this feeling. Probably the reason why it's bannable now.

I'm just gonna say this I'm pretty pissed off at the OSS clan. I still love you guys but yeah I'm pissed.

[TheJib]

removing the black surround is most definitely an exploit and most definitely an unfair advantage.. No need to argue that. No need to point fingers at this point either. If all you want is a different red dot, i'm sure there's sprites out there for that. That's not the issue.

[Steven]

An exploit? I don't agree.

An advantage? Read my above post. For me it is not an advantage. "I scope when I need to shoot; not so I can hide behind a wall and see everything." As do most snipers. Really, perma ban for a stupid skin?

[{OSS} Joker... |ESM|]

Dear fellow community members:

For the record, this "exploit" appears to be a fairly recent change by the {OSS} commanders. I was unaware of any such change when I took a TF2 break at the start of the current stat period, and was unaware of this change until I was contacted earlier tonight.

I feel that any such actions were inappropriate, and think that it's a terrible thing for any clan, let alone {OSS}, to put the community through this. As a partial charge sniper, I have to say that being able to make the black disappear would be a distinct advantage, preventing many snipers from shooting at you, and giving you a nearly full view of battlements, in comparison to the blackness that I despise as a sniper.

On behalf of the clan, I fully apologize to the community for those actions of the {OSS} Commanders. It is unacceptable behavior, and frankly childish. I believe that this was handled rashly on both sides, and believe that the issue was blown out of proportion. As soon as admins informed both Andy and Steven about the "problems" with their textures, they removed the custom textures.

I hope that the community will attempt to be as forgiving as possible for these actions, and that the community recognizes that given the admin's desire to get rid of these textures, the textures were in fact removed. Both these players viewed the texture change as harmless, and even though I don't even claim to know even a portion of the events surrounding this, I believe that there is a fundamental difference between the innocence which these players approached this, to the purposeful "hacker" nature of many other players.

In addition, I feel that there are many other untraceable actions that should also constitute a ban, and if detectable would be already banned. Macros for instance have long been viewed by me, and many others of the community, as unfair and far worse than a simple scope change. At the very least, the custom scope forced these players to aim and snipe the same as any other sniper, even if they do give you a widened field of view. Macros, such as rocket-jumping, are far worse, putting a computer in the player's seat to perform, with nearly perfect precision, difficult to perform actions. I can understand that since this is a detectable offense, that this would be far easier to ban, but on the same token, if the community wishes to crack down on something like this, that gives the player an advantage, it must crack down harder on macros, actions that the player doesn't even perform.

Best Wishes,

Joker...

{OSS}

|SMA|

[octo-dhd]

I am now filtering the modified scope textures on the servers.  I do not want to have to turn the servers sv_pure 2 - please work with me here.  I honestly do not care how much of an advantage these do or do not give.  I think that installing any custom textures that do not in good faith keep the game how it was intended are a problem.  I will remove problems, and those that cause these problems when I become aware of them.   Removing the 'shade' portion of the scope does give you a wider field of vision while zoomed, and since its clear they intended to limit the view for a reason I think it goes against the game.   I do not at this time intend to remove the replacement crosshairs, since I've always thought custom crosshairs should of been in tf2 to begin with.

I have banned Andy and Steven over this since this some how got whipped up into a big deal while I was out at dinner, and the whole thing ticked me off something fierce   I do anticipate unbanning them sometime in the future as long as no further problems occur.