>>14341
This Halloween event does not have me hooked to my computer like the past two Halloween events, mainly because there is no boss like you said and the bumper car controls suck so it's really hard to have fun with it. Immediately I thought 'dang, I need to practice this in a more open environment' and apparently many people thought the same cus there are now bumper carmaps and racetracks. I did have a couple chuckles from the silliness though, and I think the underwater spell is cool.

Not speaking of the events though, I think the comics lately are ruining the characters for me. I feel like they're now catering to a different kind of audience than they used to (-cough- kids -cough-). Also as much as I love Makani's work in the comics, I think it would be cool to see different artists working on an issue here and there. I like the idea of TF2 being a community thing instead of a studio throwing content at its consumers, so that direction should also be taken with the comics. With a set plot of course, no fan works made official.

I didn't think the controls for the bumper cars sucked, because I've never been good at driving in video games. I constantly bump into everything, or spin into a corner. Even driving irl gives me massive amounts of anxiety. I figured the fault was on my end.

I thought the amount of items was fine, though I liked a lot of the items that didn't get in, as well. I also think Makani should keep her job as exclusive comic artist. Minttu is no longer interested in TF2, Michael Avon Oeming is working on adapting his comic "Powers" for television, and there's literally nothing stopping you from making your own non-canon fancomics, if that's what you want.

>>14343
I do enjoy making my own fan-made comics, I just thought it would be nice to see other styles in the official comics. And I have no idea why Minttu is apart of the conversation. I never brought them up at all. Also, I never said Makani should be fired. You're taking personal attacks for absolutely no reason and I'm honestly confused.

>>14344
Minttu did the Christmas comic with Engineer and Pyro. And I just think it remains consistent if Makani does all of them (or Reneirei picks up whenever Makani can't, like with last year's Halloween comic).

I didn't think you were attacking me, I was only explaining my side of the story, as I cannot say what anyone else thinks.

>>14341
I dislike Zhanna, I think she was a waste of a potentially good character for 'SOLDIERS GF' bullshit.

>>14346
On one hand, I love how unique all of the female characters are in TF2. No two women have the same personality, body type, face, etc.

On the other hand, most of the female characters are only mostly there because they're a bit character (the policewoman from "Doom-Mates!", Little Jack's mom, the old woman who wanted to find out what a pedophile was, Jessica from the Apple Store), or because they're the girlfriend/sister/mom of one of the male characters. Only Helen and Miss Pauling are sort of unique in that regard.

On the other other hand, they're all MORE than just "the girlfriend/sister/mom" of a male character, and can easily stand on their own.

>>14348
Too bad they aren't and you could easily replace Zhanna with anyone and get the same result: a background character who doesn't really need to be there.

>>14349
Be honest: Were you just one of the people who was peeved Soldier wasn't 100% gay or asexual, and Zhanna sunk your ship?

Because Zhanna existing doesn't mean Soldier didn't, at some point, have sex with a dude.

Or you don't like female characters at all. Which is fine, as long as you own up to it.

>>14350
That's some heavy duty implying you're doing there.

I don't care about shipping Soldier at all, I think he's a blight on the comics and should not have been ever allowed to be given karma Houdini status.

I love Miss P and Maggie, so your bullshit falls flat because I hate Zhanna because she is a fucking worthless character, she doesn't deserve to be in the comic because she brings absolutely nothing aside from OHH LOOK AT US SO IN LOVE, OKAY NOW THAT'S OUT OF THE WAY I'LL STAND IN THE CORNER WHILE PLOT HAPPENS.

>>14351
I'm sorry. I got presumptuous there. All the previous hate I've seen for her, or for any of the female characters, was either "She infringes on my necrophilias," (as if bi/pansexuals don't exist?) or "Unless she's in game as the Fem-Heavy, and there's a nude mod for her, I don't give a shit."

>>14351
Plus, the idea of the mercs being "karma Houdinis" has already been acknowledged. The only things they've actually gotten in trouble for were things Mayor Mike tried to pawn off on them. They kind of have to never be arrested, or else there'd be no game, y'know?

>>14352
I think I love Soldier/Zhanna because it reminds me of a headcanon I had awhile back (which I posted on TF2chan) where one of the mercs would be revealed to be in a relationship with someone outside TF Industries. Someone that wasn't a mercenary, but had the temperament to be able to deal with them. And this fits the description.

I just always figured the reveal would be a boyfriend, instead. It seems in-character for Valve to canonically out one of the mercs as gay, but not with any of the characters they've actually been shipped with.

Zhanna's like that shitty tacked-on OC in fanfiction. She doesn't serve a purpose. Nobody gives a shit about her. She just makes noise in the background while the central fucking characters that TF2 is actually about get banished to side-plots. But because she is the author's baby, she will never, ever get edited out.
I won't go so far as to say that she's a Mary Sue. On the contrary, she's a pretty cool, balanced character. There's just no place for her in the TF2 comic.

Back to OP, I'm miffed about hats. I feel that, at one point, Valve understood that even cosmetic items can affect playability, and they made an effort to release cosmetics that maintained the practical elements of the original class designs. Now you can cover your medic's intentionally conspicuous lab coat with dark armour, or put a bunch of distracting lime green splotches all around your scout's hitbox, and I think that's shitty.

I'm also still mad that Valve nerfed the stock sticky launcher to shit and released a ridiculously OP demoknight shield in the same update. I'm more angry about that than anything Valve has ever done. I don't even play demo. I'm just really, really offended.

>>14374
A lot of people love Zhanna. You'd probably think she was cool if Soldier was female and Zhanna was male, but because Zhanna's a woman, she's a "shitty self-insert OC Mary Sue".

>>14375
I really, really, really wouldn't.

This is why we can't have differing opinions in this fandom, because when something is disliked everyone cries strawman arguments at you.

>>14376
No, we can, I just don't understand why you feel this way. A lot of people throw around the term "Mary Sue" at literally any character who happens to be female and has any bearing on the plot, without any real explanation.

>>14377
I could have sworn I explicitly said, and I quote:
"I won't go so far as to say that she's a Mary Sue. On the contrary, she's a pretty cool, balanced character."

But as 14376 said, no critiques or opinions allowed. If somebody doesn't like something you like, stuff words into their mouth and jump to the conclusion that they're sexist. Don't stop strawmanning until TF2Chan is completely, one hundred percent dead.

>>14341
>I'd like to see unpopular opinions without people silencing each other and not letting people criticize Valve's decisions.
RIP OP's dream


So I went back and reread the first chapter Zhanna appears in. The first impression we gain about this character is as such:
- burly Russian woman
- been trapped in the same place for 20 years
- wants to have sex immediately with the first man she finds
- Scout turns her down/takes too long with his incessant talking, so she takes Soldier instead

A few pages later, Soldier exclaims he has a girlfriend, is shown to be feeding her in the background (which is pretty fast-paced for a relationship? But I guess their whole relationship is in fast forward). We do get a miniscule amount of character depth when she tells Heavy that she and her sisters brutally punished men who came for them while their brother was away.

Even with that tidbit showing Heavy's sisters as strong, capable women, it's still... not the best way to start a character. They had her come on strong, with very little build up, so I can see why some people have an issue with her becoming a part of the gang with such a flimsy introduction. To be honest, they could have done it better by either giving her a lot more build up (eg: she could have been one of the sisters/the only sister who returned from the hunting trip with a dead bear - that in itself shows she is a capable murder machine, rather then telling us outright).. or they could have had the whole situation a throwaway "lol sex" joke.

To be honest, the whole thing feels like they're trying real hard to fix their fuck-ups with Soldier's character, especially in the last few comics. Like they're pushing Soldier as being not-stupid because omg u guise he banged a woman, that is totally valid character depth

>>14379
I actually kind of got the sense that Soldier's relationship with Zhanna was more underscoring the "Soldier is an idiot" line. It reads like the classic Very Feminist Not At All Sexist joke wherein a woman is obviously not pretty/feminine enough to be girlfriend material, and therefore any man who would voluntarily be in a relationship with her must have something hilariously wrong with them. In this case, Soldier is portrayed as being too dumb/dysfunctional to know/care.

Evidence: Image on imageboard. Does this look like a man who has any idea what's going on?
Also consider context. This all happens as Soldier is walking around naked in a house full of women like it ain't no thang, after trudging through the snow wearing nothing but a thick coat of honey. So basically, immediately after they establish that Soldier is oblivious to his own sexuality.

But I guess we're supposed to think it's cute because they sort of work out in their own dysfunctional way. I mean, sure it's basically statutory rape of the mentally impaired, which is almost as hilarious as that time Spy made a child commit murder. Especially since it's female-on-male aggression, and we know that's really funny, right?

Confession Bear time. Soldier is okay with it so I'm okay with it too.


Anyway, my long-term prediction is that when it comes time for Zhanna to leave the group, Soldier will be mercilessly dumped, and that'll probably be played for laughs too, and then Soldier will see something shiny and the whole thing will be forgotten. But until then, yeah, she does kind of read like a one-off joke that for some reason won't go away.

Going to throw my non-Zhanna-related cents in.

1) I don't understand what they're trying to accomplish with the Powerups mode at all. I've tried it three times now and even putting aside the grapple exploits which they'll presumably sort out it's just a total mess. Most of the powerups are exploitable to the point of not being fun to play against at all, there's always just one cockgobbling Heavy or Pyro who's wiping the floor with everybody else.

I can understand it from the perspective of "Hey people really enjoy 2Fort instantspawn, let's make that into a real thing". But what really kills me about it is that in this, their official clusterfuck mode, THIS is where they decide they're finally going to disable random crits. You know, the thing that has fucking ruined their official servers since they were introduced. I just don't get it.

2) I really like most of the cosmetics. People are always saying "Oh I stopped playing it when they started adding endless hats, that ruined everything". No it didn't. You can craft really neat and unique looking mercs with em, and they still make the environments with the old Rockwell "artstyle" thing in mind. I think the only really bad thing they added cosmetic-wise was Pink and Lime paint.

I hate when my team is losing really bad. It's not fun to lose that much. I hate when medsoldiers block the entrance so i can't even fucking play the game. I know we should get along with losses, but i lost without even being able to leave my fucking base. This is stupid. I hate when some scrub underage start copying what i've writen and start pasting it the entire game, they call it "bind" or something. That's frickin annoying. And i belive TF2 should have balance patches, like Dota 2. Some classes never change.

>>14380
Soldier's mentally competent enough to consent to sex. He's an idiot, but I think there's a very big difference between an idiot and a person who's actually mentally disabled. A person with Down's Syndrome or mental retardation can't help the way they act, especially if it's severe. Meanwhile, an idiot has no diagnosable problem, and may even have a high IQ, they just don't actually utilize their brain at all. They act without thinking.

>>14378
Again, not true or what I said at all. I actually respect your opinion deeply, and encourage you to continue having said opinion. Stop taking offense when I'm not actually angry or don't hate you or am not a straw feminist or whatever you think I am. I just want to know why you feel that way. I just feel like Mary Sue/Gary Stu is thrown around like enough reason on its own, without any explanation to back it up.

I unironically love to play as medic. I feel like shit about it because people say both he and pyro are n00b classes; Medic is my most played class right next to pyro. I know I shouldn't feel like shit because that's a lame-ass stigma, because having a medic on your team can bring you a lot closer to a win. I still feel like an inadequate player because that's one of the only classes I can play. Ech, I'm being a whiney lil' shit, I'll stop now.

>>14385
The only reason for someone to try to make you feel bad about playing the class that is purely designed to help their team, is that said person is probably bad at the game and requires a pocket medic to play well, thus their less-than-subtle distaste for the crutch they require.

Basically Medic players are great and hating on them is asking to never get healed and suffer for it :V

>>14386
Quite a stretch to say that's the only reason.

I mean, what if they're bad!snipers and they're mad that medics are a thousand times more useful than they'll ever be?

What if they're straight out of Call of Duty and they think Medic players are bad because of their low k/d ratio?





As for the hate that Pyro gets... Haters be hatin' because deep down they know it's their own fault for letting a massive red blob walk up to them, light them on fire, and then shoot them with a one-shot projectile.

>>14385
I don't hate people who play Medic because he's a baby class, I hate them because they're terrible at the game and act like it's everyone elses fault that they suck.

I don't hate any class. I only hate people who blame defeat on everyone except themselves (unless they were genuinely the only one focusing on the objective, which happens sometimes), yell "rekt" even if it wasn't their kill (or no one was actually being "owned"), or refuse to accept that they're going to suck for awhile before getting good.

Actually, that last one sort of applies to all video games, as well as anything artistic.

Dunno whatever this belongs here, but I don't know where else to post it.

I started playing with this girl about a year and a half ago. She was a fantastic medic and taught me a lot. Always very vocal on her mic, but never any more than necessary.
She had a lot of steam friends, all of whom I eventually got to know too.

Then, about 5 months ago, the girl started having cough fits when talking.
Later on these fits would be followed by her Medic being completely still as if she had to suddenly get away from her computer.
Eventually, we heard her puking. It was very sudden in the middle of a sentence, like she wasn't excepting it at all herself.

She apologized and logged off. Nobody has heard from her since then, not me or any of her other steam friends. Her account have not been active since then either.

The group didn't really talk about it.
For the longest time it was like we all thought "Hey, she is gonna come back".
Then yesterday we all finally started acknowledging she probably wasn't going to return.

We all just stood in a circle, on an otherwise empty server and talked about the amazing times we had with her, and the impact she made on our lives.
She taught me TF2, right when I was about to quit, and it's the first online community I've been a part of.
She reached out when one of the group members were suicidal and had her steam on 24/7 so that they could talk.
She sent another group members money when he was in serious financial troubles.


Yet, not one of us knew her in real life.

Here's praying that whatever happened to her, she'll think of the good times we had.

I thought "Cuanta Vida" was really out-of-character, or at least, didn't mesh with my headcanons, so I sort of residually dislike anything that reminds me of it (sweet, bishounen, child-like Scout, the Sniper/Spy pairing, Spy with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair). I'm sure someone could write these in a way that made sense with the canon, though. I'm not against it as a ship, I'm against how it's usually written. I can't see them as fluffy, smitten, romantic boy's love protagonists.

Soldier/Medic is also one I could probably like, if it were written better. I usually see the fic written EXACTLY the same way as TF2!Heavy/Medic fic, only with Soldier portrayed as a svelte, younger, more fluent-in-English version of TF2!Heavy. And TF2!Heavy's either a rapist bully, crying his eyes out (with Medic rubbing it in his face about how he's just not sexy enough), or constantly declaring how asexual he is. And it sucks. You don't like Medic with TF2!Heavy. I'm fine with that. I respect that. Just don't constantly go on and on about how you think they're totally wrong for each other, and write Heavy intentionally OoC as fuck just because you don't think he's enough of a kawaii pretty-boy to draw or write porn of.

>>14393
Just to clarify: I love ace headcanons. I have several myself. But they need to make sense within canon. You don't just take a canonically super-horny character and make them ace, or headcanon them as ace just to "get them out of the way" of your ship. Can't you just, you know, have [insert characters commonly shipped together] and have them as platonic friends who just date different people?

People who are pro-Demo or anti-Demo reducing their reason down to "because he's black". He's much more than just "the token black guy" (if Pyro isn't also black, but we may never know).

On one hand, he's probably the character with the most backstory. He has a sword and an eyepatch. He's royalty. He survives being black in an era that hates him. He's survived his dad's death with relatively little angst. He's fun to play. He's articulate and caring.

On the other, he's loud, smokes cigarettes, is an alcoholic, and is incredibly difficult to play, especially as a Demoknight (at least, for me-- I'm shit at all of the classes' melee weapons). Those are legitimate reasons to not rank him as your absolute favorite.

>>14395
Do people actually do that, though? I mean, like, unironically, not a joke?

>>I hate support class abuse. I hate the fact that medics, pyros, and engineers aren't allowed to experience a learning curve just like everybody else. I hate that they aren't allowed to relax and take risks and occasionally dick around just like everybody else. I hate that they get blamed for not miraculously saving other players from the consequences of their own stupidity, or from the simple fact that the other team was better. I hate that soldiers get to fuck up and leave the flank wide open and spies get to fuck up and give enemy engineers and snipers free reign, but if a pyro fucks up and lets a spy evade him, he's the one who let the whole team down.
I especially hate the amount of bitching that goes on about how there's never enough medics around when this is how medics get treated. And I freely admit to abusing admin powers to ban the shit out of people who act like that. I'm not even sorry.

>> I'm also very annoyed because Medic's more recent voice lines sound all scruffy and congested. How dare his voice actor not sound completely the same nine years after he was hired? Valve should have planned for TF2's unprecedented longevity by hiring immortal voice actors. Shame on them.

>>14396
I fucking love you

>>14396
On fumblr, yeah. His fanbase is very "Demo is the most handsome, because he's black, and if you dislike him at all, we don't need you in the fandom, because you're racist." I won't lie, a lot of fandoms are, in fact, super racist, or sexist, or homophobic, but that doesn't mean everyone who dislikes Demo, or has him any lower than their absolute favorite is automatically racist.

I feel how you've been treated. I main Heavy, and people are always telling me he's too slow and too stupid to be useful. Meanwhile, I always protect my pocket, defend open points, and throw Sandviches to anyone in need.

>>14398
fumblr, there's your problem.

After a season trying to play UGC Sildurr with a bad!Heavy and another season curled up in the warmth and safety of Polk and Discario's colon, I think I can now say with reasonable supporting evidence that people who excel in "low skill" classes in TF2 are by far the most impressive gamers in TF2. Like, in Heavy's case: They have big scary guns but they're also giant slow-ass motherfuckers with less range than my dick trying to do damage against people who are smart enough not to stand there and do nothing about it, and as we all know, being smart is OP. And on top of that, they're responsible for their combo, which, in my experience, will consist of a demoman that only presses W and a medic who thinks he's a scout and no pyro because pyro's busy pressing flowers or someshit, and none of those guys can take near as much damage as Heavy himself can. And you know, I can smell a difference between heavies that are only good at tracking and Heavies that actually have the gamesense and strategy to keep several steps ahead of eight classes that could gank his medic before he even spins up. Basically what I'm saying is that there's a reason that Polk has a medic harem and we don't and it isn't because Heavy is an easy class to master. But you can't expect dummies to appreciate it. Heavy utilizes intellect in place of muscle memory and that's a difficult concept for dummies to grasp.

(disclaimer: this anon is pyrofag and is therefore biased because pyros have the same damned problem)

>>14399
Well, it feels like the internet's gone to two extremes. You have fumblr, which is (at least, trying to be) socially progressive and inviting, but frequently fucks it up, or even makes it worse, and you have other sites that try to do the exact opposite, which encourage segregating anyone who isn't white, male, and straight away from the things they like, and make "jokes" about raping people and calling SWAT teams to their houses for "fun", and nobody wins with either extreme.

I don't know anything about comp, who plays it, how it works, anything. I don't keep up with it. But if I can Heavy for a comp team, I'd love to do it.

>>14400
Obligatory "You should do comp because competitive heavy mains are rarer than unicorns and this needs to change." Also because if you find the right team and do your job on it, you'll actually be able to notice your own contribution and people will appreciate the fuck out of you.

if only we had some sort of "competitive play" forum where people could ask for help on how to get started in comp....

>>14341
I'm tired of the fact that the only fanfics that seem to be made now are just rape.

It's worse that the faggots who write this shit have thin skin and don't want to be kinkshamed for writing rape when that is the only thing on their accounts.

>>14402
I should post more of my fics here. I usually limit my smut to a handful of pairings, but they're like...nauseatingly fluffy. The one noncon fic I ever wanted to write, I haven't written yet, because I couldn't get it to not sound like middle school drama fic.

>>14403
Post both. Get tips from helpful writefags on how to avoid nauseating fluffiness and middle school drama. Become an invite-level fanfiction author. Let the fame and fortune go to your head. End up in rehab. Write best-selling memoir. Die of crack overdose. Become subject of Hollywood documentary.

>>14404
I've already posted my fic on here. A few months ago. Nobody looked at it.

>>14402
Get off your high horse. Not getting your rocks off of fictional assrape or shitplay doesen't make you a better person. And it doesen't excuse kinkshaming no matter what kind of disgusting kink it is. I'm pretty sure these people wish they were into something less controversial if they could choose.

>>14406
Different person, but it depends on how they do it for me. And there's problems with pretty much anything, depending on how you do it.

There's the shota/loli person who seems a little too into actual kids, or the yiffer who starts drawing non-anthro animal porn. The guro enthusiast who has planned out, in vivid detail, how they'd dismember their girlfriend. The person who gets way too excited about noncon. The person who supports racial diversity or gay/trans inclusion in porn only because interracial/gay/trans porn is their fetish, or bara fans that go to great lengths to deny their favorite porn fanart was drawn by a woman, because girls are icky and pointless. The cuckolder who blames someone for getting cheated on. But otherwise, I don't kinkshame. I just leave those people alone.

>>14407
Sort of same but I mostly just demand that writers who want to approach touchy stuff like rape and abuse actually have half a fucking clue what they're talking about and portray it in a way that does justice to the topic. I'm not saying you have to have been raped to write about rape, but if people could like, take it seriously and maybe do their research before they write another motherfucking "rape is love" fic that would be nice.

And of course if you have shitty opinions and use your writing as a vessel to ship that shitty opinion, I'ma gonna not like ya. Especially if you try to pull an Orson Scott Card and whine about how you're being personally attacked and people just need to judge the story itself, even though the story itself is also dripping with homophobia.


One of the reasons I still love TF2chan, though, is that we've had a lot of success with writers who treat their subject matter right--without going into hypersensitive fumblr mode and shutting down people who write from a place of respect for the subject and compassion for people who deal with it irl.

Well. Nevar forget Toki. I'd unban her just to ban her again.


>>14402 Implying that kinkshaming is okay, and people who write erotic stories must always be in it to wank.

Anon writes a lot of rape/consent-related angst for therapeutic reasons. Anon can't have conversations about being raped IRL without being perceived as broken baby bird, so resorts to literature for understanding and expression and to be not afraid of old demons. So clearly I must strangle kittens amirite.

I really hate how some people get all angry when you don't care about the comics/videos/lore and simply play the game.

I think it's great Valve is trying to expand the game and make some enjoyable content for those people who enjoy that sort of thing, but when people act like you're not a proper fan of the game when you only care about what is in the game and not everything related to it otherwise, then I get sort of upset.
In fact a lot of people seem to care more about the comics and/or videos than the actual damn game itself.

>>14409
To be fair, there's several countries where the game hasn't been released, and fan translations of the comics/videos are all people have to go on. Or people who can't play video games at all, due to motion sickness and epilepsy.

I'm sadmad that TF2 jumped the shark on its plot and character development. Remember back in the day when TF2's absurd humour was laced with something dark and visceral, when the plotholes were a statement rather than a gimmick, and the mercenaries tore your soul in half because they were both terrifying and huggable?

Seems like in the past couple of years Valve's been making nothing but stupid silly updates with very little substance beyond being stupid and silly--and neglecting all the other things that TF2 used to be. It's just stupid silly hats and stupid silly game modes and stupid silly weapons and stupid silly ducks. It's like every punchline now is "look how many fucks we don't give" but that's the problem, Valve. You don't give any fucks and you're letting your games go to shit. An "I don't care" joke from Valve is like a racist joke coming from Mel Gibson. It's not even a joke, it's just shitty.

I'm sorry, my nostalgia boner is really starting to ache. I'll be in my bunk.

>>14411
It was never dark and serious beyond non-canon fanfic and headcanon, that's the thing. The tone has been consistent since Day 1.

>>14412
Maybe a matter of perception, because I played TF2 and liked its gritty undertones and meaningful subtext long before I started reading its fanfiction. It was always absurd and comical and not too concerned with logic. But it didn't always reek of gratuitous stupidity.

>>14413
It just seems consistently silly (in a dark way) to me. Like Zhanna going, "No no, it's okay, I tortured a member of the KGB to death, but it's justified, he was trying to murder me first," to Heavy, and Heavy responding basically, "Aw, you're just saying that to cheer me up." That one panel basically sums up the entire game to me.

>>14414
If I may also speak in anecdotes:
Let's look at Saxton Hale. He's a pretty silly character. But he's also a statement about our constructions of masculinity, about social dominance, and weird contradictory rules about what a dude should and should not be.
And remember when we found out that the Mann Brothers were pouring all their money (worthless) into the pursuit of gravel (valuable) whilst destroying the people around them (what should actually be valuable) and that was kind of stupid but not nearly as stupid as the fact that in real life thousands of people are dying in warfare over shiny rocks because something is seriously wrong with our species.
And back when the Director was running around making his completely misleading documentary about the mercs based on his own skewed perception of reality, I was like, bro you're basically my ex this is too real.

But I cannot for the life of me sink my teeth into ducks. I just can't. Mutant Bread might have been interesting if they'd focused on that instead of turning it into generic action romance and if they were going to steal Star Trek characters and wrap them up in wizard costumes couldn't they at least have stolen Data? I just. I'm done with my anecdotes. You can go back to telling me I'm delusional and that TF2 has been oh-so-consistent now. Just somebody please explain to me the meaning of ducks.

>>14415
Again, I think you're reading too deeply into it. Every time I've thought I stumbled upon a work with deep, introspective ideas on society, the government, feminism, gay rights, hypermasculinity, or whatever, it always turned out that I was extrapolating, and that the author never meant that, or intended that. So I've given up on trying to read anything into anything unless it's obvious.

>>14416
I'm just calling the punchlines. Saxton Hale is stupidly hypermasculine. That's the joke. Red and Blu Mann had fucked up priorities. Also the joke. The director is an artiste of pure bullshit. The joke. And those jokes, like most good jokes, are funny because they reflect sources of tension in our real lives. When somebody breaks that tension in a nonthreatening manner, we feel relief, begin to laugh, and it becomes "funny." That's how humour works. While I'd agree that TF2 was never meant to be a complex literary discussion of gender roles or market economies, it has (objectively, unless you're going to argue that Saxton Hale's homoerotic hypermasculinity is not meant to be funny) drawn humour from those topics in a way that specifically targets relevant issues within them. They're funny because we can read into them, apply our own thoughts and struggles, and experience catharsis when boundaries are crossed. Ducks also cross boundaries, but they mostly just cross the boundary where game developers are supposed to make an effort--which was edgy back in 2009. In 2014 it's pretty much just salt.

>>14406
>>14408
>WAAAHHHH DON'T KINKSHAME ME!!

Learn how to write something that isn't vomit inducing garbage and try to get thicker skin so you don't fumble to justify your terrible fetishes. I don't care about your feelings, write better stories.

>join lobby as solly for the first time
>doing shit ofc
>med doesnt heal me, pockets a full health demo that is not even doing anything right now
>why dont u heal me med?
>in my mind: heal me you stupid piece of shit i fucking hate you, dont you want your uber faster idiot?
>its cus u suck
>tf2 community is friendly and welcome to newbs especially on lobbies

>>14499
Usually if you learn the basics in pubs before you lobby, join mumble, and explain to fellow players that you're new and might need a little help, people will at least tolerate you, if not go out of their way to teach you. There are plenty of shit players who are very well accepted around TF2center, but one thing that does tend to rub lobby players the wrong way is if somebody who isn't good just shows up, doesn't comm, doesn't ask for advice, and just generally doesn't show an effort at getting up to speed, and hence, wastes everybody's time including their own.

Generally. Sometimes your luck is shit and you get stuck in a lobby with Slayer and you get bashed for anything and everything. It happens. Overall my experience has been mostly the opposite. But again, it takes being forward about your inexperience and presenting yourself as someone who wants to be helped.

If push comes to shove, and you're North American, just play HL lobbies on TF2C late at night. Buncha crusty gold and plat nerds who don't give a shit about winning and are just in it for the memes. At worst, they won't care if you're bad because they don't care about anything, and at best, they'll decide you're cute and adopt you.

Unofficial list of TF2 grievances:

>>Spies who don't cloak and just run around trying to stab people head-on
>>Spies who demand Pocket Medics
>>Any player who demands that the Medic exclusively heal them and them alone, regardless of class
>>People who don't sit still and wait for a Medic while spamming the Medic call button
>>Snipers who ignore everything except other Snipers
>>Idlers/traders who go on a normal server to idle/trade
>>People on mic with prepubescent voices
>>People who respond with 'owned' even when they don't get a kill
>>People with usernames like xX420DankMemerXx and [insert Nazi joke here]
>>Uncooperative teams who don't care about each other or completing the objective
>>When you hop on a server and it doesn't register your Merasmissions objectives

>>14546

Oh good gravy, number 4 and that second to last one are definitely mine. I'm also going to tack on "People who come onto servers just to be rude" and "Getting Spawncamped"

i play medic a lot so basically anything involving bad pocket etiquette annoys me

>>soldiers, demos, (anyone who can hurt themselves) that doesn't help you charge an uber
>>pockets who run away from you or charge into where theres no cover
>>when pockets pick up health even though you're dying??

also, another general pet peeve is when theres 5 scouts and not a single one is capping

>>14592
Don't forget the good old "stride confidantly into danger, see danger, decide nope, rocket jump to safety and abandon medic" routine.

And my absolute favourite. Soldiers and demos who decide to bomb while your quickfix beam is on them. I have "Come Sail Away" on a spam bind just for the occasion.

I miss you guys and I hope you're doing ok. I miss the good times we had and it's sad seeing everything wind down. But that's how everything is, right?
I wish the best for all my friends and all the lovely people I got to meet here. Thanks for making those early years of my life worth something.

>>14714

Hay man, I just recently found this place and it feels a little sad to see it go. I can tell this place meant a lot to you and others here.

>>14715
It's not dead, though. I post new content on a pretty regular basis, at least.

>>14715
The chan isn't dead. The problem is a lot of the old content creators have stopped posting here and all the newcomers are hoping for old fics to be updated or are trying to dig up ones they lost instead of creating new content for themselves. I used to frequent this place when I was a wee summer child (before I was old enough to post here) and a big problem I see is content creators are posting but not getting any response to what they make so they just give up.

Personally the new Meet Your Match update made me really antsy. Almost all I do on TF2 is adventure around pub servers, and now I wake up one day and they are gone? I tried joining a casual game, but I gave up waiting after 14 minutes (Edit: second time took 2 to connect). Obviously a lot of people worked really hard on this update, and I'm glad TF2 has matchmaking now, but the missing pubs and long casual wait times make me sad.

Waitwaitwait, what's this about pubs not being a thing anymore???

>>14740
Basically if you want to hop on a casual Valve server you have to do it through the matchmaking now, and it sets you up with players that are the same "level" as you. There are still all the regular pubs like skial and lotus but you have to go to the community servers option to get there.

Tbh, I appreciate the sentiment behind a lot of what's going into the new update, but even with close to 2000 hours in TF2 I get stuck in casual matches with fresh babies who don't even have hats because my "level" isn't high enough. I don't really want to grind in casual matches just to level up when I can have more fun in a community pub. I'm sure it's great for the new kids but it feels a little like a slap in the face.

>>14742

>mfw

I feel like a soldier who just got back from a long, hard war to find out his son died

Ok thats a little dramatic but i still feel like this game gradually changes into something unrecognizable more and more each day. It's... unsettling.

I feel old.

>>14743
I know the feel all too well. My bf abandoned TF2 for Overwatch since the game has changed too much for him. But I still go back since the community is so strong and frankly a lot less toxic than plenty of other games. Yeah, it feels like a lot more newbies and kids lately, but I think the spirit of TF2 has stayed mostly intact.

>>14744
I keep hearing about Overwatch. What's so good about it compared to TF2? It looked really similar from what I've seen, just with more classes and a futuristic theme.

>>14745
Overwatch is basically the Serious Business version of TF2 and is more competitive. For example:
-Teams are 6v6.
-Established competitive matchmaking with placement matches to determine rank without forcing you to start from 0 and work your way up.
-Casual matchmaking based on levels you earn with experience. Each level also gives you a free Loot Box you can open without keys or paying.
-You can get almost all cosmetics through Loot Boxes. Loot Boxes also have a chance of dropping credits you can use to buy whatever cosmetics you want, and if you get a duplicate of something you already have in a box, you get a small bit of credits.
-Heroes all move at the same base speed but a lot of them have abilities that make them more mobile and able to reach vantage points.
-Special abilities (called Ultimates) don't reset to zero when you die, unlike Ubers.

But in terms of community and the experience outside gameplay, I would say Overwatch is lacking.
-There are only 12 maps, and while more will be added, you can't choose which ones or even modes you want to play.
-Community is generally toxic and most people don't use voice chat.
-Based more on team composition and balance. There's a lot of meta on what heroes are good for what and who counters who, and if you don't build a team around that you're basically screwed unless everyone is good at what they do.
-Good luck asking people to switch heroes.
-No trading items you get in drops.
-You can't hop in games unless you try to join a friend, but because teams are so small you'll probably be stuck in spectate until a slot opens. IF one does.
-No large community groups or discussion boards from what I've seen so it's hard to connect with people outside the game.

Overwatch is a pretty good game but it requires a bit more effort and is not as relaxed or friendly as TF2.

>>14746
Thanks for taking the time to inform me. I'll probably give it a shot, but considering I'm not even that hardcore about TF2, I doubt I'll mesh well with the community. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

>>14745
overwatch is just something different after a while of playing tf2 i guess some people want to try some new class based shooter

Wait, Overwatch is hardcore? Are we playing the same games here? Or maybe it's because back in my day, the only competitive TF2 was league TF2, where we had teams that you tried out for and sometimes paid money to be on, and map reviews and you'd watch demos with your invite-level mentor so that he could tell you why you suck...

Overwatch, by comparison, boasts a ranked matchmaking system that is slightly less broken than TF2's ranked matchmaking system, but only slighly. Tryhards join this ranked matchmaking system hoping to have serious competitive matches similar to those in TF2's competitive community. The matchmaking system then proceeds to match them with a bunch of complete strangers who are nowhere near the same skill level, who may or may not have a clue what they're doing. None of them communicate, both teams run a Huntsman Sniper, one team stomps the other team, the worst player on the losing team posts in global chat flaming everyone but himself for the loss, the Engineer's sentry gets play of the game and everyone walks away feeling deeply unsatisfied. So basically, Overwatch's competitive mode has all the ballsweat and toxicity of a real competitive community but with only a fraction of the actual competition.

Overwatch also has a Quickplay matchmaking system which does not claim to be competitive or well-balanced. Ever since ranked came out, Quickplay is mainly used for practising new heroes or for pitting a team of six space apes against a team of six emo kids just for the hell of it. The seriousness is on par with that of a Valve public server, but it's still matchmaking, so you still have to wait to play and you don't get choose which map and you may never see your teammates again afterwards, which is a bummer.

They also came out with 3v3 and 1v1 game modes which are almost exclusively for dicking around. Every week they release a weekly brawl, which is a match with some weird rules (imagine a 6s match where you could only play Soldier) and is also just for fun. And every now and then they have events where they release a novelty game mode, which so far has included things like a horde mode and a rocketleague ripoff.

So yeah. IMO, Overwatch has quite a bit to offer casual gamers and not so much to offer serious competitive gamers.

Holy fuck I am feeling much better because Kumori fixed ALL THE SHIT.