Richard's Online Journal
[17/06/08] Return To Team Fortress
MAGGOT!
Getting close to a year on, the thing I still love about Team Fortress 2 is that it’s managed to stay an actual game. You can jump onto a server and actually play it…
...for fun. Amazing.
I can’t remember the last time this happened. By this point in their lifecycle, everything from Quake to Unreal to Counterstrike had been completely conquered by that miserable tribe best known as ‘asshats’, whose entire world view was built around knowing every level like the back of their hairy palms, and whose real priority in the game wasn’t to win, but to spread their misogynistic, racist, elitist taint of misery to everyone who dared set foot in their fetid domain. In Warcraft, make the slightest slip in a team, and you’re not in a team any more.
Don’t even ask about the more ‘realistic’ games, where players think of themselves as proud warriors in the fight against global terrorism, and don’t even crack a smile when you tell them it’s impolite to Steyr.
Am just resting eyes. Leave Sacha and Heavy alone.
But Team Fortress 2 is still a game. More than that. It’s still a game. It’s there to have fun with, and be played, not conquered and won. Yes, people care about winning, often passionately, but the end of a round is as good as a steam valve. Griefers and trolls exist, but everyone else is having far too much fun to let them have their way. I’ve seen more genuine cries of ‘gg’ after an epic defeat in this one game than in the last ten years of other multiplayer games, and spent more time bantering with other players and generally screwing around with the rules and character classes than almost any other game ever. The endless war of Red vs. Blue not going so well? Team LOL To The Rescue! Let’s see how they handle the passive resistance of an all-Medic rush!
(In case you’re wondering, it’s usually ‘with incredible speed’. Gandhi should count himself lucky his enemies didn’t have Pyros...)
I put a lot of this down to just how amazingly non-aggressive the whole thing is. It’s a shooter, but oh, such a friendly one. Just getting rid of the usual childish taunts like “Die, bitch...” in favour of “Thanks, Doc!” does so much to make it a cheery environment, and I can’t remember the last game I’ve laughed so much at even after dying. The sight of a Heavy, gargling with laughter as he continues massacring your team. The Demoman, waving his bottle in the air and whooping. Tom Francis’ backstabbing spy lying dead on the ground in a pool of his own sneaky blood.
Moments like that make death worth living.
Ooh, you little scamp, you…
The only real slip I think Valve’s made so far is the Medic achievements, not only for being a complete pain in the neck (especially the one about healing a Heavy while he punches people to death - something that’s never likely to happen during a real game), but for encouraging flat-out bad play (ubering a Scout? Are you kidding?).
I don’t think it’s that big a deal, and it didn’t hurt the game any after the first insane week of silly-play, but I’m hoping to see something a bit more appropriate next time.
Like suicide pills for Spies. Mandatory ones.
I’m a little suspicious that the new Pyro is due to come out at the end of the week and we still don’t know much about him, including if he’s a her, but eh. If there’s one company that’s earned a little fanboy trust, it’s Valve. And anything that makes it more fun to run around with a flamethrower has to be a good thing. I really hope the Engineer’s next on the list for a much-needed upgrade though. There’s something insanely satisfying about having a gun turret in exactly the right place to carve a team into kibble. Shame it stops right around the time someone cries “Spy’s sappin’ mah will ta live!”, or enemy players just carpetbomb every corner just in case.
Yes, there are plenty of suggestions of how to fix things, including mobile turrets, booby-traps to blow up in spies’ faces every now and again, and shutting up and knocking off the whining you whining engineer you shut up. But I don’t think those things, while mostly good in theory, would totally fix the problem as far as I see it.
My suggestion? A nuke. That only I can deploy. I see no problem with this whatsoever, and you know what? Nor will you. Not for long, anyway.
Yeah, I’ve seen that a few times on 2Fort. As a frequent Engineer (it’s my second most played class after Soldier), it’s deeply heartwarming, especially after being stuck in the basement on Spy Watch for the entire game…
I love that stuff like that is the norm.
Yeah. I can never get over just how fresh it feels every time a round starts, even though it’s the same maps, the same basic tactics…
So much of it’s down to the characters having such defined personalities. In most shooters, you see Person X in a particular costume. Here, I’m usually thinking about ‘that Scout’ and ‘that Engineer’.
It takes a lot of the personal edge off fights, except for things like the Nemesis system, which itself turns most of the annoyance into a wonderful chance to blow off steam with a little revenge.
Posted by Richard on Tuesday 17th June
Did you find the love in your dispenser again Richard?
Yeah - I think a lot of multiplayer games get too bogged down in the hyper competitiveness, and just become cold, hostile places to play. Newbies are frowned upon, not welcomed, and any sort of play that deviates from the prescribed battle plan is met with a kickvote being initated.
In TF2, about the only real competitveness is the will to outdo each other in terms of comedic and laugh out loud situations.
Posted by The_B on Tuesday 17th June
I’m not talking to you, you turret-hater.
Posted by Richard on Tuesday 17th June
I’m not saying you’re the worst person in the world, just that I had to rejig Hitler’s place on the list.
Posted by Richard on Tuesday 17th June
ahh, Team LOL.. I have missed it, since it’s inception on that wondeful night in prelaunch beta. The fact when we were all soldiers and posing for screenshots an enemy spy (I think it was Tom) was posing with us and no one realised untill after was even better.
Great game.
Posted by Nick on Tuesday 17th June
Tom had his cloak on, yeah ;-)
Posted by Richard on Tuesday 17th June
Bizarrely, it’s a game that’s not getting a lot of love from many of my fellow gamers (console boys and girls). They seem to be happier schizophrenically switching from one game to the next as 360 kids are want to do.
Posted by Cunzy1 1 on Wednesday 18th June
@Cunzy
Blame Gamerscore, an amazingly effective way of making sure players keep switching to the newer shinier games.
For TF2 the percieved lack of levels completely stumped everybody, and it felt like after a week everyone had figured out the “best” place to put their turret, and the “best” place to fire off grenades to do the most damage. There is a real play to win mentality online, rather than play to have fun. Then again, winning is fun :-)
Ultimately it is possible that there are simply not enough players on console that can keep a niche game (i.e. not Halo or CoD) going, the TF2 community on 360 is probably 30 people. Whereas on PC there are countless people just online, playing whatever.
Also, sorry this is a long comment, nobody I know who bought the Orange Box kept it after completing Portal, maybe a downloadable version of TF2 would have been a better way to go.
Posted by Chuff_72 on Wednesday 18th June
You can download TF2 on its own if you want. Although if you like shooters, I don’t see how anyone could possibly complain about The Orange Box.
Well, yes, I can. It’s the internet, after all.
Posted by Richard on Wednesday 18th June
Sorry was refering to the 360 version, if TF2 was seperate to the Orange Box as a DL on market place it’s possible more people would be playing it. People didn’t keep hold of the Box so no more TF2.
Posted by Chuff_72 on Thursday 19th June
Ah, fair enough then.
Posted by Richard on Thursday 19th June
In the gruelling game on Dustbowl today, I was standing by an Engy Dispenser on the final cap to refuel, and spotted an enemy Soldier coming in along the left hand balcony. As he started to rain fire on us, a previously unseen Red Demoman jogged up to him and brained him with a broken bottle, then glugged emptily from it over his bloodied corpse. I love that stuff like that is the norm.
There’s a great tradition on 2fort, admittedly not widespread, where offensive classes who’ve managed to lug the Intel all the way back to their capture room will stop short and toss it to an Engy minding his turret there, giving him the credit for the capture as a thank-you for holding the fort while everyone else was off on offense. That’s not a spirit I’ve seen much evidence of in Call of Duty 4.
Posted by Pentadact on Tuesday 17th June