While some games charge an arm and a leg for each new map pack, over the past few years, Valve has been paving the way for free updates with its 2007 release of Team Fortress 2. Ever since its launch, the game has received a constant stream of updates including new weapons, maps and among other things, hats. In a recent move that surprised many gamers, Valve took this massively popular FPS and opened it up to the world, making it free-to-play.

For some, this was a brilliant move that allowed new players to give the game a try without having to worry about the investment involved. For others though, this move opened the flood gates of new players whose lesser experience got in the way of their competitive spirits. In an attempt to preserve this higher standard of competition, a community mod named Free2BeKicked has been released, allowing server hosts to automatically block players from joining who have not purchased the game.

Unsurprisingly, the release of this mod has been met with a large amount of criticism. While many of the more experienced Team Fortress 2 players would rather not have their servers filled with new players whose skills have not developed yet, free-to-play users are calling foul, viewing it as unfair that they are being prevented from joining select servers. This has led to some players going so far as to request the banning of the mod.

While it is understandable that players would be unhappy that their experience of the game is being limited by this mod, it is only a small percentage of the community, not Valve, who are making use of it. There are still countless official Valve-run servers and the vast majority of player-run servers for these free-to-play users to make use of. The only users who are making use of this mod are those veteran players who are looking to participate in an unhindered, higher level of play.

For new players who are worried that this mod will become more prevalent as time goes on though, there is still hope. For players who have downloaded the game for free, you only need to make a single purchase in the in-game store to ensure that you have access to all of the affected servers.

As something that fits into a moral grey area, it's difficult to say whether the creators of the mod are in the wrong. While it is no doubt limiting which servers new players can play on, it is also understandable that veteran players may wish to only play on servers with those who possess a higher skill level. It may not seem fair to some, but it's an unfortunate product of making such a competitive game free-to-play.

With Team Fortress 2's move into the world of free-to-play gaming, what could this mean for Valve's plans for the future? With the recent announcement that they're done with episode-based games and possibly single-player only games, Valve seems intent on ensuring that they're at the forefront of the ever-changing gaming industry.

Could the free-to-play format of Team Fortress 2 be a sign of future Valve games? Do you feel that anyone is in the wrong in terms of the Free2BeKicked mod?

Team Fortress 2 is out now for PC and Mac and is free to download and play.

Source: MTV