Forum: gaming.stackexchange.com
Tags: <team-fortress-2>
Title: 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?

Answers:
sents: text: Free accounts can't get hat drops.
text: As I recall, you upgraded to a Premium account (and gave @badp
text: the Professor Speks... jealous ), though.
text: There are 3 drop timers: Items.
text: Standard is 6-8 a week, assuming you play at least 6 hours a week.
text: Note:
text: To my knowledge, paints and tags are part of this timer, but they have a lower chance of dropping.
text: Immediately following an update, Valve tends to raise the drop rate for those items.
text: Right now, you're guaranteed to get 1 Uber-update weapon a week minimum.
text: Crates.
text: Standard is around one a week (sometimes two), assuming you play at least 6 hours a week.
text: Hats/Misc.
text: Standard is one every 1-6 months, assuming you play at least 6 hours a week.
text: 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.
text: Hat drop rates vary wildly.
text: I've had an 8 month stretch with no hat
text: drops before, but more recently, I've been getting a hat every 1-2 months.
text: Side Note: The hat drop rate is bugged during the rare Double Drop rate week.
text: While the first hat drops at the normal rate, the second uses a much, much shorter timer (the crate timer?).
text: So, it's not unusual to get two hat drops during a double drop rate week.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 11
sents: text: It's totally random, but very, very rare (for many people).
text: I get one hat in every couple of months.
text: (I did receive an Ol' Geezer the other day, but the last time I got a random hat drop was five months ago...)
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/7364/BoltClock
score: 6
sents: text: Yes, hats are dropped similarly to weapons.
text: However, little is known about the drop rate for hats.
text: For weapons, there is a rate of roughly 8-10 items per week, if you play an average amount of time.
text: However, hats (and paint, tags etc) are on a completely different kind of timer, where once you find one it can take months before you find a new one.
text: In my years of owning the game (so suffice since drops were implemented), I've only found two items on the hat-timer.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 3
sents: text: These posts seem out of date after a whole year, I have been playing TF2 for well over 600hrs and have had 1 hat drop for me, at least that's what I thought
text: but it ended up being a achievement reward.
text: So, no, I haven't found anything in drops except weapons and crates, no hats nor any unusual items.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/30882/Ken Smith
score: 1
sents: text: I've been premium for less than a week, and I've gotten 2 hat drops.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/38200/Hale
score: 1
sents: text: The chances are really low, but it's like the drop system; I didn't play for months, and after I started again, on my first drop I got a Brown Bomber.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/38719/Random answer
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
It's not unusual to get two hat drops in a double drop rate week. Hats are dropped similarly to weapons. Little is known about the drop rate. 
Hats can be obtained in drops. However, this is rather rare and random.