Cheater's Lament

“

Heartwarming. Click to listen — The Spy

”

The Cheater's Lament is a headwear item available to all classes. It appears as a glowing, golden halo attached to the wearer's head by two wires. It was awarded on the 2nd of September 2009 to all players who had not used external idling programs and had played at least once since the introduction of the item system. As such, it is not obtainable through the regular item drop system or acquired through crafting.

Trivia

• In reference to the conditions on which it was awarded, the Cheater's Lament is labeled as an 'Aura of Incorruptibility' in the backpack.
• When you open your inventory in for the first time after getting this hat, the following message appears: "Congratulations! Your Honesty has been rewarded with a new hat! (Some other players were less scrupulous, and have been less fortunate)", but was later changed to "Congratulations! Your honesty has been rewarded with a new hat!"
  • This message showed up as an item in your inventory prior to checking your inventory after getting the hat. It is labeled as a Level 100 Cheat Detector.
• Any class who wears obtrusive headgear normally, such as the Scout, Soldier, Sniper, and Engineer will have the halo replace their normal hat (though the Scout only loses his baseball cap and retains the headset). Wearing this and the Alien Swarm Parasite are the only official ways (as of yet) to display the entirety of the Soldier's head.
• By Valve's calculation, the removal of all items obtained through third party idling systems affected around 4.5% of the TF2 gaming community, which means roughly 95.5% of the community owned a Lament when it was released; this percentage is now presumably lower, as any players who have joined since then don't have one.
• The Cheater's Lament created a brief rift between some players. As wearing the hat indicates a player who has not used idling programs (and therefore not a "cheater"), various griefing tactics are sometimes carried out on other players depending on whether or not they bear the item, some servers even going as far as to permanently ban anyone even so much as wearing it. However this behavior has become much less prevalent following the immediate period of the hat's release.
• For a while after its addition, the glow of the Lament was visible even on cloaked Spies, allowing enemies to find them even if they were fully cloaked. This was thereafter fixed, to the dismay of "less scrupulous" Snipers and Heavies everywhere.
• Drunken F00l, the creator of the most popular 3rd party idling program, was awarded a Community Weapon for his work on the TF2items website, not for the idle program.
• This hat cannot be crafted with a second hat to make a new hat in the same way that most class specific hats and misc items can be.
• Even though it's called the "Cheater's Lament", VAC banned players were still able to get this hat.