Just preordered Orange Box on Steam...

[schild]

Heh.

I was over 100FPS almost all the time and my FRAPS recordings are all a steady 60FPS it seems. But then... :P

[bhodi]

God - this is just as good, if not better than the orig. I just wish they added you know, something new. All changes are minor, though the heavy+medic combo is pretty brutal... as are fully upgraded turrets. The spy seems worse than his orig counterpart, and I can't tell if scouts can still see spies...

[Modern Angel]

I was iffy on this and I shouldn't have spent the money but ho crap I'm glad I did. It's pretty much perfect in every way. It feels like you're running through a demented Tex Avery cartoon.

[Yoru]

So, I got to "play" for about 20 minutes after it released last night. It crashed out on me twice after I did manage to log in, despite the excessive loading times (3-5 minutes). First time happened within the first few seconds after spawning in, D3D error telling me my video card was too girly to handle the load I was throwing at it. Settings reduced, it ran for a good 2-3 minutes.

Then I had the gall to hit Tab, which I expected to open up the score/ping screen, and that caused it to crash too. The server I was on was laggy as shit (perceptible seconds between hitting Mouse1 and my demoman shooting a 'nade), but running around shooting nades after waiting for this game for 10 years is enough for me.. for now.

I'll kick it a few more times tonight and see if I can actually play on my old rig. (AMD64 3500+, 1GB RAM, 6800GT, for those in similar boats. Ran nicely at 1680x1050, windowed, with almost everything set to low/off, and still looked pretty.)

[Samwise]

That would explain all the cursing.  I got it running very nicely after the initial snafu, with not a single crash (load times still suck, though).  Also, frontpaged.

If all goes well I'll be playing this for several hours tonight.  I only got about half an hour in last night thanks to all the delays, and squeezed in an hour this morning before work.  Tonight nothing will impede me.

[Yoru]

Yeah, after 10 years, I was hoping for something more epic, or at least to frag a dude in the 10 minutes I had left before bed.

Still, the removal of so many things I enjoyed (detpacks, incendiary rockets, detpacks, the many forms of grenades, DETPACKS, hallucinogens, DETPACKS, medic diseases, ... detpacks?) saddens me.

I'll still play it, if it runs. And who knows, maybe the streamlining will be good for the game.

[Samwise]

I'm bummed about some of the omissions, but they did get rid of a lot of stuff I hated too.  I played a fair bit of TFC over the past week to reacquaint myself with the "old" game, and I noticed that I really hate grenade spam.  People running into your base and throwing 8 grenades all over the place before dying, spies lobbing grenades at your sentry guns, people just throwing grenade after grenade at choke points so that they're constantly spammed with deadly explosions... BOO.  This is obviously not an issue with TF2 and its almost complete lack of grenade.

Also, medic poison was kinda lame and I'm not entirely sorry to see it go.  The fact that the "healer" had a far better DOT than the pyro was always dumb.  Even if it was fun when I did it to other people.

And I never liked conc jumping.  At all.

I do hope they bring back hallucinogens in some form, though.  Maybe the medic can get that instead of poison.

[caladein]

Anyone running this on a somewhat lackluster computer and live to tell the tale?

My laptop can't run Bioshock (P4 2.8Ghz, Radeon x600 Mobility w/ 256MB RAM, 2GB RAM) and it runs really smooth at 1440x900 on mid-High settings.

[Fabricated]

I'm enjoying it but I prefer the CTF gametype far more than the goddamn push gametype that every stupid multiplayer title has. It makes stuff a clusterfuck.

[schild]

This is the first game where I've enjoyed CAPTURE THE CONTROL POINT. Ever. Seriously. Still hate Onslaught in UT2k4.

[Yoru]

I'm bummed about some of the omissions, but they did get rid of a lot of stuff I hated too.  I played a fair bit of TFC over the past week to reacquaint myself with the "old" game, and I noticed that I really hate grenade spam.  People running into your base and throwing 8 grenades all over the place before dying, spies lobbing grenades at your sentry guns, people just throwing grenade after grenade at choke points so that they're constantly spammed with deadly explosions... BOO.  This is obviously not an issue with TF2 and its almost complete lack of grenade.

Also, medic poison was kinda lame and I'm not entirely sorry to see it go.  The fact that the "healer" had a far better DOT than the pyro was always dumb.  Even if it was fun when I did it to other people.

And I never liked conc jumping.  At all.

I do hope they bring back hallucinogens in some form, though.  Maybe the medic can get that instead of poison.

Yeah, but the medic had to hit you with a melee weapon to do it, which was no mean feat back in the days of the Modem Majority. I suppose it's a bit easier now that everyone's a LPB, and the mechanics had to change to accomodate the differing play environment.

Still, I don't recall massive 'nade spam in the QWTF versions that I played - I think you got two or three of them? The EMP grenade, nail grenade and hallucinogen grenades were the most useful ones that I remember. A well-placed EMP would take out a sentry gun or sniper, but required good accuracy. The nail grenade was an excellent suppression weapon. Hallucinogens were excellent anti-sniper and fuck-with-the-enemy weapons. And also just plain fun.

I never "got" conc- or rocket-jumping, myself. See: modem.

[LK]

Is there an online manual or some form of documentation? Official forums? I'm trying to find information out but it looks like it's hidden within the ass crack of Shangri'la.

[Trippy]

Yeah, but the medic had to hit you with a melee weapon to do it, which was no mean feat back in the days of the Modem Majority. I suppose it's a bit easier now that everyone's a LPB, and the mechanics had to change to accomodate the differing play environment.

The Medic axe attack was a good way to check for spies back in the day. I used to just stand on the top of the ramp leading to the upper level of 2fort4 (i.e. the sniper deck), blocking the path, and whack all  my "teammates" that would try to pass me and I would chase down anybody that tried to avoid being hit or who had come up the other ramp, or shoot at them a couple of times if they were Scouts (kind of hard to catch those guys even as a Medic).

[Samwise]

Still, I don't recall massive 'nade spam in the QWTF versions that I played - I think you got two or three of them? The EMP grenade, nail grenade and hallucinogen grenades were the most useful ones that I remember. A well-placed EMP would take out a sentry gun or sniper, but required good accuracy. The nail grenade was an excellent suppression weapon. Hallucinogens were excellent anti-sniper and fuck-with-the-enemy weapons. And also just plain fun.

I forget now how many nades you got in QWTF, but in TFC you could have 4 of each type, for 8 total.  My most common technique as an engy was to set up my turrets at home and then head to the enemy base to chuck grenades.  Once you got the timing and physics of those things down, it was very easy to make a grenade explode anywhere in range (I used to take out sentry guns and snipers in hard-to-reach locations by chucking an EMP straight up and timing it to go off right as it reached its apex), and each grenade is an almost guaranteed kill.  Pull the pin, wait a second, walk around a corner, toss the grenade so it explodes in someone's face, repeat.  They will run out of dudes before you run out of grenades.  EMPs were especially great because they did damage proportional to the ammo carried (usually an instakill), and would go through walls.  The standard frag grenades tended to do a little less damage, but a direct hit was still death for anything less sturdy than a soldier.

While I will miss the "mindless offensive engy" playstyle, I think it's probably better for the game as a whole that stuff like that isn't as much of an option now.  (Note that it's still possible to go offense as an engy; you just can't out-damage the soldier any more without building a sentry gun.)


Re: the Medic axe, you can actually still use the Medic's healing gun thing to check for spies, because it won't work on a non-teammate.  If you point it at someone and it doesn't go "whrrrn" and start healing him with a beam of light, he's not your friend.

A far better tool for spy-checking is the flamethrower, though... just don't try it on a FF server.   :-D

[caladein]

Re: the Medic axe, you can actually still use the Medic's healing gun thing to check for spies, because it won't work on a non-teammate.  If you point it at someone and it doesn't go "whrrrn" and start healing him with a beam of light, he's not your friend.

Then what's that achievement about getting healed by an enemy medic while you're disguised?

[Fabricated]

The best spycheck is a pyro. I like how brutally effective spies are this time around. In TFC they were pretty good but kinda blew their load after they shanked a sniper or other defense class. The backstabs are so great now and the cloak/disguises are so quick you can get chains of stabs going. I got 3 people in about 6 seconds as a spy once.

None of the classes really seem useless which is nice. The only class I think needs a buff is the Pyro since while fire damage is brutally effective now, the flamethrower has no range and they get NOTHING else interesting.

[Yoru]

Okay, I actually got a good solid 10 minutes of playtime this last go-round. Reaction: Much . Must nostalgia playing 2fort (although arguably a shittier version than good old 2fort4), shooting nades clear across the field and blowing up people with pipebombs on the bridge. I'll have to upgrade my computer so I can run this in native res and not have it core out constantly.

Oh yeah, back in the saddle again.

[Samwise]

Re: the Medic axe, you can actually still use the Medic's healing gun thing to check for spies, because it won't work on a non-teammate.  If you point it at someone and it doesn't go "whrrrn" and start healing him with a beam of light, he's not your friend.

Then what's that achievement about getting healed by an enemy medic while you're disguised?

I think you're correct.  My bad.  I just assumed that the medic would keep that function.  Also, enemies can use your dispensers for free now, instead of triggering a warning so you can blow them up?  Damn.

(edit) The scout is LUV.  I'd missed the first time around that he has a "double-jump" ability, which lets him do stuff like run across the top of the bridge on 2fort.  As long as there aren't any sentry guns in his way he's a one-man flag-capping machine.

Also, it doesn't seem like anyone on any of the servers I've been playing on knows how to rocket jump, because I'm the only one doing it.  They must be wondering how the hell that damn soldier keeps on getting up to their battlements so quickly.

[Big Gulp]

I love how the game just seems to be blowing a big, sloppy kiss towards No One Lives Forever, from the music to the animation style.  That's a series that really should have done better commercially.

[Samwise]

Yeah, lotta NOLF in there.  I suspect Evil Genius and The Incredibles also had some influence.

[NiX]

I planned on being in bed by 1:30 AM. It's now 4:30 AM. Damn TF2. DAMN YOU! I love the demoman this time around. Before it seemed like nade spamming. Now it does take some skill to land nades on top of people. The most fun I'm having is lobbing the remote nades at the other battlement in 2fort and blowing up snipers. They hate me so much 

[schild]

I'm always on teamspeak when playing btw.

[Trippy]

Yeah, after 10 years, I was hoping for something more epic, or at least to frag a dude in the 10 minutes I had left before bed.

Still, the removal of so many things I enjoyed (detpacks, incendiary rockets, detpacks, the many forms of grenades, DETPACKS, hallucinogens, DETPACKS, medic diseases, ... detpacks?) saddens me.

I'll still play it, if it runs. And who knows, maybe the streamlining will be good for the game.

Does no detpacks mean there aren't any objective-based maps where you blow things up like rock2 or is that handled in other ways now?

[Trippy]

I was looking for the retail release date for the Orange Box when I noticed that GameSpot still has an interview up from when TF2 was going to be siimilar to what BF2 is today. Ah, what might have been...

[eldaec]

This really is teh splendid.

Get it while the 'community' isn't full of people who know every inch of every map and are just way better at it than you imo.

I'm shit at FPSs so I have maybe 3 weeks before everyone gets too good and this stops being so much fun.

[Simond]

Anyone havine real problems getting this to run, there seems to be two things that work a fair bit of the time - forcing windowed mode and forcing directx 8.1 from the start-up.

There's...something funny going on with full-screen and high resolutions, and dx8 kills some of the shaders, which makes the game run better on older machines/gfx cards.


Oh, and spies are - pyro/demoman costume, cloak past engineers, appear behind them (as a 'friendly'), stab one, cloak, disguise as engineer, decloak.

Watch the other two engineers look confused as to why there's still three engineers in base, plus a new corpse.

[Zetor]

I just run it in windowed mode. I still get occasional freezes (about 10-20% of the time during a map-switch), and once it even crashed out on a map-switch claiming "not enough video memory available". Load times are also pretty crazy, and my PC isn't that bad -- I run a dual core 2.8ghz athlon x2 setup with a geforce 7600gt and 1 gig of ram.

My most embarrassing moment involves a spy too... I was healing the entire team at a heated battle over a control point, and saw a medic running for cover, low on health. So I heal him to full, then turn around and get back to the rest of the team. As I turn my back, I think "wait a sec, that name looked familiar..." then get backstabbed and die.

He actually disguised himself as ME, and I didn't notice it. Whoops.


-- Z.
horribly bad at shooters

[eldaec]

Load times are also pretty crazy,

More crazy than other steam or source stuff?

I find load times are always crazy when Valve are involved.

[Zetor]

Yeah, you're probably right. Still, Bioshock (I have the steam version) starts up a heck of a lot quicker, and level changing is super fast; HL2 starts up slooow, but level load times are manageable. TF2... I just hit "launch" on steam and it takes at least 2-3 minutes to get to the menu. Same with actually loading a map (when it doesn't crash), ugh. The Steam Community overlay thingamajig also takes a few seconds to load up, so I typically only chat there while I'm dead.

OTOH, the game is crazy fun (the first online shooter I had fun with in a long time, and I'm pretty terrible at FPS to begin with), else I wouldn't be playing it so much.


-- Z.

[MrHat]

Couldn't play Monday.  Couldn't play last night either.

Grrrrr.

[Moaner]

It was almost worth the wait.  TF and TWCTF were perhaps the best times I had gaming so I was really looking forward to this.  So far, I'm not disappointed.  I've been playing mostly a medic or heavy and god damn they make a nice combo.  After I learn the maps I'm plan on playing an engineer mostly.

I'm playing on a X2 4200+ 1gb ram and a 7800gt.  With everything set to low or medium my framerate never drops below 45 in 1400x900.  Still, now I really want to upgrade  :-D

[schild]

E6600/8600GTS/2GB 1066 yields over 120FPS at (nearly) all times. I can record in FRAPS with my cap at 60FPS perfectly. Thus far, I have not had a single CTD. Or any sort of crash for that matter.

[Moaner]

E6600/8600GTS/2GB 1066 yields over 120FPS at (nearly) all times. I can record in FRAPS with my cap at 60FPS perfectly. Thus far, I have not had a single CTD. Or any sort of crash for that matter.

Very good to hear.  I think come November I'm going to build a rig with very similiar specs to those.  I'll get by just fine until then but damnit I want the eye candy!

[bhodi]

This game is definitely sweet, but there are a few things people should remember. On the assault maps, if you are an engineer, make sure to run to the front capture point and defend that. I constantly see people turreting up the rear point and the enemy just runs uncontested through the forward part pf the map.

I guess i should write up a few tips and tricks for each of the classes when i have time - a lot of the old stuff still works (including turret placement on 2fort!)

[schild]

Turret placement only works if there aren't spies that know how to rape face. Spies are built for 99% annoyance and 110% turret removal. Sapper, 3 shots from the revolver, takes about 3 seconds. A second turret can't even kill before you can get those 3 shots off.