Unlike a straight up level system you can trade with your friends, so someone coming into TF2 can also function fairly well off of the excess duplicates from a friend. Where as a new comer to the kinds of games I discuss here are at a distinct disadvantage and don’t have any real option other than to put in the hours for the grind.

It is still a threshold for entry that I dislike in a tournament focused game, but TF2 started without any of that stuff and it was shoehorned in at a later date. I still consider base TF2 a fantastic game and don’t think the addition has exactly gone and ruined it.

The only thing Drops has really ruined was the in game interface and that was only with the micro transactions. Not even the micro transactions are the source of the problem there, just plain interface clutter and it being so in your face is the thing I dislike there.

Gref, how do you feel about Team Fortress 2? It has random item drops and longtime players kind of have an advantage over newer players, but you didn’t talk about it in this article. I sorta thought you’d have mentioned it.