there are a ton in the game

does this count the ESEA medals we were promised for playing in any season

Wait so yr telling me i finally win ugc and then they cancel medals this is FUCKED

y'all are fine

relax theyre just gonna reuse the old models like they've been doing for a while
esea medals though...

I can't say I didn't see this coming as a concept designer and coordinator for a lot of medals that got in (and now no longer will be in). I'm thankful for everybody who's approached me for help on the topic as well as the modelers who helped me out with my stuff and other people's stuff, especially when they make little to no money (commission is the only way you'd get paid). But the moment every update started being medal after medal and people were getting sick of it, I realized this was going to change or stop at some point.

These factors probably came into play:

• an oversaturation of extra cosmetic models (of which I was told they could never be switched to the Action Slot, and thus probably bogs down the game even more than it does now)
  
• incredibly easy acceptance process, which means people exploiting it for free Self-Made items (e.g. Journey to the East workshop contest hosted by absolute pieces of shit who harassed workshoppers and wanted freebies, 20 contributors listed on 1 medal because they all wanted the sparkles)
  
• no quality check before accepting the models (e.g. Brasil Fortress' first medals, I'm sorry modeler I will call you out there's no way you should have gotten greenlit and Valve should have told you to revise)
  
• abuse of passing out medals (e.g. admins who passed them out to friends or did it for ez freebie Genuine items in-game, see Self-Made controversy above for the sparkly version of this)
  
• abuse of selling medals (e.g. non-charity incentives; the only time this was ever okay'd was ESA Rewind II and this was due to a miscommunication)

I mentioned this to friends and on the TF2 Emporium Discord, but medals really did help get people to pay attention to many community events that Valve simply did not have the time or interest in helping promote. Events such as Potato's custom MvM community missions, the Beginnings 5 speedrun/trickjump/racing competition, general competitive TF2 things such as league medals and tournament medals, and charity efforts like Rally Call, FLAN, Blapature Co, Hugstf, and Tip of the Hats. The explosion and high participation when Highlander first became popularized was, IIRC, due to the incentive of getting an exclusive in-game item.

If they are looking into other ways to help support this stuff, I appreciate it, but I'm not hopeful that they'll figure it out on time, especially for any TF2-exclusive charity groups whose donation numbers will get hit by this. People who would have already gotten medals in previous years and might not feel the need to re-donate if the medal isn't new. If anything, I hope established charity events will be the events to get the most wiggle room right now while they're still figuring it out. I am happy they're letting certain events and leagues recycle medals already in the game, but that restriction was put into place for leagues a while back.

.

I brought this issue up last year in a private TF2 leagues and services discord (guardians), it was only a matter of time before Valve put their foot down. I strongly suggest anyone planning to run a small sized tournament reconsider their options. Medals were a privilege, not a right.

The last 16 months have seen a massive increase in medals coming into the game, leaving less time for developers to work on the actual game. Rarely are medals 100% ready for release and cause absolute havoc for Eric and others.

Bros whats the problem with lots of people making medals hows that a bad thing? Even if theyre bad or for a 1 day event its just a nice small little cosmetic its not like u get a free nobel peace prize

good riddance

SIGSEGV mentioned that the biggest lost in performance in TF2 was caused by the increasing number of models

Now how will I get my 'GENUINE IRRELEVANT QUIRKY GAME MODE 1 DAY CUO PARTICIPANT' medals...

Honestly good riddance, IMO medals should have never been handed out willy-nilly and should have been kept for the things that had at least a set amount of effort in. I never played those custom MvM tours but I can imagine creating a map, setting uo the waves etc taking a lot of time. When you're some random redditor or tf2 youtuber setting up some poorly organised generic meme event? Fuck that.

Is it finally time for TF2 weapon stickers?! No more silly tris and polygon count limits for models to keep in mind, just 2D images to glue on your skins.

Hopefully eventually we'll get closer to CS:GO, where the stickers will support teams that actually stick together for more than 1 season, ingame pick'em and forced sprays (no more weird furry or NSFW stuff ktnx)

Do u mean medals or models

probably both

medals are models dingus

One good example to demonstrate how fucked up the medal system was, the admins from Brasil Fortress managed to get a 2d drawing as an in-game medal (didnt even know that was possible).

Fuck I want my demoknight cup participation medal

i only ask because i imagine that medals are probably the least resource intensive items in the game when compared to cosmetics because they have no jigglebones, unusual effects, look like quite a simple object (to my non programmer eye) etc and you can't equip more than one at a time though i could be mistaken

Source of my previous claim in the bottom of the comments on this video: https://youtu.be/RFdD4Sqe7i4

Seems like adding dozens of painted stickers would cause perf issues as well

I think your intuition is right but it seems like the issue comes from the quantity of models and textures rather than their quality (although I'm sure it's part of the problem too).

I don't think it would be wild to claim that this 15 year old engine does not handle asset loading and rendering at this scale, thankfully the game development industry has made good progress on these subjects in those 15 years (the tech behind the latest Spider Man game is pretty astonishing), up to Valve to keep up ;D

how about an API to rename etf2l medals for example, rather than add new ones each season.

So how comes they didn't mention anything about restricting hats that go in? Surely they're more graphicly intensive than small medals that are kinda hard to see unless ur close up

The medals are kind of like a small little takeaway to say that u participated in a community ran event like when u go to MinecraftCon and u get a cape on ur charc. I don't see any reason why there should be any prestige in having one or a community sparkle one

Hats are much easier to justify because of the revenue they generate, medals never generated direct revenue

Everyone and their nan on reddit has been making one day cups to get easy medals, most of which sit in a backpack and never see the light of day. I'm of the attitude that medals are nice as a bit of prestige e.g. a reminder of your first season of etf2l, a celebration of supporting a charitable cause, or participating in a community wide event. I'd be surprised if anybody looks back on a competitive highlander dustbowl 1 day cup with Nostalgia, and proudly shows off the medal in game.

If the sheer quantity of medals is reducing performance and taking important time away from the devs, the decision to reduce medal additions is a no brainer, and I'd wish they'd adopted this stance sooner. I'd hope they make an exception for the next round of TOTH, and continue allowing the established community's like ETF2L to distribute medals as they have been for many seasons.

If I'm understanding Eric's email correctly, then this isn't really necessary. All ETF2L medals have the same model. When a medal of the same model is "re-released" with a new title and description, all that's necessary is informing Eric that a new medal of the same model with new name X and description Y are required. In the email in the OP, Eric only mentions that new models will not be supported. Basically this means that completely new medals for new tournaments/leagues/charities will not be published anymore.

This also means that leagues which already have their own medals will still be able to send medals to their players, as this process is taken care of by the league, not by Valve.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain medal distribution is under no threat, just the addition of new medal models. While it truly is a shame to not get new TotH medals, and I do hope they make an exception, so long as you have the item in the game distribution is done by the party who wanted it in the game.

title is clickbait

cool thanks for clarifying for my tiny brain

rip tip of the hats medals