Is it possible to get a hat that won't mess up my awesome mohawk?

Question

I know the prospects aren't good, but are there any hats available (especially for smugglers) that would allow me to keep my wonderfull Mohawk?

Answer

Did you want the helm to still be displayed?

There are certain types of hats that don't hide your hair such as "headgear" pieces. http://www.torhead.com/search/headgear

However, even in this list there are pieces that will cover your entire head and hide the hair.

The only other option is to hide all helm graphics through the preferences menu.

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What hats in TF2 are, or were, available for free?

Question

What hats and miscellaneous wearables (like sunglasses and badges) in TF2 are available for free, without crafting, buying, un-crating, random drops, trading, or buying a game on Steam?

Aside from these, what hats and wearables were available for free at one point, but are no longer?

Answer

Currently free hats

The following wearables are currently available without having to buy anything on Steam or in the Mann Co. Store:

• The Ghastly Gibus (obtained with the "Ghastly Gibus Grab" Halloween Pack achievement by dominating a player wearing a Ghastly Gibus)
• The Frontline Field Recorder (obtained with the "Local Cinema Star" Replay Pack achievement by uploading a replay to YouTube that gets 1000 views)
• The Alien Swarm Parasite (obtained with the "Hat Trick" achievement in the freely-downloadable Steam game Alien Swarm)
• The Spiral Sallet (obtained with the "Mission Accomplished" achievement in the free-to-play Steam game Spiral Knights)
• The Wiki Cap (awarded to good contributors on the Team Fortress 2 Wiki)
• The Lo-Fi Longwave (given out by the KritzKast podcast whenever they feel like it)
• The Dueling Badge (found after winning at least one duel)
• The Mercenary badge is still dropping for new players (may take up to a week). This is subject to change.

Also, anybody who contributes a model for an item that gets added to TF2 gets a special "Self-Made" version of that item with the "Community Sparkle" effect.

There are also some Halloween hats that can technically be gotten year-round on servers that are forced by convars into Halloween Mode. See the "Halloween" section below.

Previously free hats

These hats required no purchases on Steam or the Mann Co. Store, but are no longer available:

• The Cheater's Lament (awarded to people who didn't use third-party idling programs before Valve's crackdown)
• The Earbuds (awarded to Mac players in the months following the Mac Update)
• The Proof of Purchase (awarded to players who owned TF2 before it was free, or new players who purchase a physical retail copy of TF2 and activate it on Steam)
• The Party Hat (awarded to all players on TF2's 15th birthday on August 23, 2011 - future birthdays may yield similar hats)
• The older 119th Update medals (Primeval Warrior, Grizzled Veteran, and Soldier of Fortune) are only avaiable to players whose first launch of TF2 was a certain amount of time ago, so if you're a new player these medals are out of reach (and unobtainable through trading).

Halloween

There are also some items that can only be obtained during Halloween Events (of which there have been 2 so far, 2009's Haunted Hallowe'en Special and 2010's Scream Fortress):

• the Class Masks available in package drops (which only occur with recognition by the item server during Halloween events) on Mann Manor (Holiday restricted to only be wearable during Halloween events)
• the Saxton Hale Mask you can craft with 1 of each Class Mask

There are two other hats that involve Halloween event behaviors that can be forced by a server operator by setting the convar tf_forced_holiday 2:

• The Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask obtained with the "Candy Coroner" Halloween Pack achievement by collecting 20 Halloween pumpkins from dead players - these pumpkins only drop on koth_harvest_event and cp_manor_event during Halloween events (Holiday restricted to only be wearable during Halloween events)
• The Horseless Headless Horsemann's Head, obtained with the "Sleepy Holl0WND" Halloween Pack achievement for participating in killing the Horseless Headless Horsemann (who only spawns on cp_manor_event during Halloween events). (Holiday restricted to only be wearable during Halloween events)
  • This is also the only cosmetic item in TF2 with a gameplay effect: wearing it makes you immune to the "BOO!" taunt paralysis the Horsemann casts periodically.

Steam events

There's also the Bounty Hat / Treasure Hat / Hat of Undeniable Wealth And Respect, from the Great Steam Treasure Hunt in Winter 2010, and the Summer Shades from the Steam Summer Camp Sale in 2011. These technically didn't require purchases, but they required owning games on Steam and obtaining certain achievements: any three were required for the Summer Shades, including some from free-to-play games, but the Treasure Hunt hats required 5, 15, and all 28 achievements (respectively) in games that ranged from "cheap on sale" to "somewhere around a hundred dollars" (hence the "Hat of Undeniable Wealth And Respect").

In the same vein was the Resurrection Associate Pin, awarded for playing all 13 indie games involved in the Potato Fools' Day ARG leading up to the launch of Portal 2 (the Potato Sack pack). Again, didn't technically require a purchase, but effectively did.

Accolades

One criterion you didn't exclude that Valve has given special wearables for is recognition of special community members. Some of these are still available (the Wiki Cap and Lo-Fi Longwave listed above). The ones that aren't:

• Polycount Pin (to entrants in the Polycount Contest)
• The ETF2L Highlander, GWJ, and UGC Highlander Tournament Medals (given to participants in those tournaments)
• The DOTA 2 hats (Storm Spirit's Jolly Hat, Sniper's Snipin' Glass, and Clockwork's Helm), given to players in the GAMESCOM 2011 DOTA 2 International Tournament.
• There are technically the 3 prize hats awarded to the Propaganda Contest winners (Uncle Sam, Amber's Rad As All Hell Hat, and J.Axer's Dapper Topper), that were only available to 3 people (each getting exactly one, from third place to first, respectively).

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Can I get hats in random drops?

Question

I think I read somewhere that with a premium account you could get hats in drops as well as weapons.
I have now 50 hours of premium gameplay, and I never received one.

Was I mistaken? Or are the odds really low?

Answer

Free accounts can't get hat drops. As I recall, you upgraded to a Premium account (and gave @badp the Professor Speks... jealous), though.

There are 3 drop timers:

1. Items. Standard is 6-8 a week, assuming you play at least 6 hours a week. Note: To my knowledge, paints and tags are part of this timer, but they have a lower chance of dropping. Immediately following an update, Valve tends to raise the drop rate for those items. Right now, you're guaranteed to get 1 Uber-update weapon a week minimum.
2. Crates. Standard is around one a week (sometimes two), assuming you play at least 6 hours a week.
3. Hats/Misc. Standard is one every 1-6 months, assuming you play at least 6 hours a week.

The length of time that counts towards your next drop is limited to (iirc) 6 hours per week, but if you don't play for a week, the next week will be limited to 12 hours.

Hat drop rates vary wildly. I've had an 8 month stretch with no hat drops before, but more recently, I've been getting a hat every 1-2 months.

Side Note: The hat drop rate is bugged during the rare Double Drop rate week. While the first hat drops at the normal rate, the second uses a much, much shorter timer (the crate timer?). So, it's not unusual to get two hat drops during a double drop rate week.

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