The new Sniper vs. Spy update for Team Fortress 2 went live yesterday, and in addition to adding new unlockable weapons and items for both classes, it also added a new way for earning them: The old method of methodically earning achievements to unlock the new weapons has been replaced with an item drop system.

As you can imagine, even if you"re not a regular TF2 player, making such a drastic change is bound to cause some consternation -- just the phrase "item drop" instantly evokes thoughts of RPG-like randomness and probabilities. Which is why Valve has gone out of their way to explain exactly how the new system works and why they implemented it.

"Across all of the class packs we were disappointed in the number of people that got to play with the new weapons [through the achievements system], and feedback from the community was generally not favorable with this approach," the developer explains in a blog post. "That new system watches the amount of time that players are playing TF2, and gives them a chance to find items at regular intervals. They aren"t guaranteed to get the item at those points, but they have a pretty good chance.