Team Fortress 2

[Yoru]

I have Steam + HL2 and CS:S loaded (recently)- I am hoping it takes less time. Might be able to sneak in a few rounds before I get to bed. I will paint a giant 'n00bler' target on myself.

Yeah, I just left mine on overnight once the preload was available one day, so I have no idea how much time it takes to get just TF2 on a Source-loaded computer. The TF2 gcf files in my SteamApps dir are about 2.4GB combined, although I think Steam claims it's only using up about 1.4GB of space.

[eldaec]

It is rather easy to turn the intelligence room into turret death.  No one player can break it.  I've yet to see a spy that can do it reliably.  A demo man can try finessing some grenades in, but then you can just run up and shotgun him in the face.   Needs to be a demo man + medic or another combination that can take a little of a beating.

Anything +medic can do it on ubercharge, but anyway, defending the intelligence room itself is entirely the thing to do yesterday.

Today, the cool kids are holding the open air room at the top of the big staircase down to the intelligence area.

You can hold that reliably with one turret and passers by. Spies can get past you, but only on the way in. Muhahahaha!

[Samwise]

Gotta have someone covering the ramp room too in that case, since they can go out up the steep staircase instead of the spiral.

I think it may be possible to place one turret up top so that it partially covers both ways up, but I haven't gotten a chance to experiment with that yet.  It'd have to be right at the corner between the ramp room and that other upstairs room.

[schild]

I think it may be possible to place one turret up top so that it partially covers both ways up, but I haven't gotten a chance to experiment with that yet.  It'd have to be right at the corner between the ramp room and that other upstairs room.

Played on a server with someone who did just that. You can waste it as a scout from under the stairs shooting between the steps.... :)

[Samwise]

Booo.  My turrets will stay in the intel room where it takes more than one punk with a pistol to kill them.   

[Engels]

I have Steam + HL2 and CS:S loaded (recently)- I am hoping it takes less time. Might be able to sneak in a few rounds before I get to bed. I will paint a giant 'n00bler' target on myself.

Yeah, I just left mine on overnight once the preload was available one day, so I have no idea how much time it takes to get just TF2 on a Source-loaded computer. The TF2 gcf files in my SteamApps dir are about 2.4GB combined, although I think Steam claims it's only using up about 1.4GB of space.

I had HL2 & CS:S on steam and on Saturday morning it took about 1:30-2 hours to get TF2, and that's with intermittent downloading of HL:2 EP1 going on. That's at ~ 600 Kbps

[Quinton]

So, the voice chat works great for me, but I hate the crappy headset I have.  I'd like some kind of headset mic thing without speakers -- I have perfectly good speakers on the PC already and I'm only using the headset for the microphone, but it has a dumb speaker that wants to sit over my ear.  Suggestions?

- Q

[Samwise]

Mic + speakers = feedback loop = bad.

[squirrel]

As expected I suck ass at this game, but damn it's a lot of fun. I'm generally turned off of action FPS multiplayer (BF2, RB6 i do play) but the style and balance of TF2 combined with great map design is ++fun.

I still haven't found "my" class: the soldiers rockets fire to slow for me and heavy's minigun had me screaming at my screen. So far I like the spy (BACKSTAB!) and the sniper are most entertaining but I still suck at them. I do wish a class had a assault rifle type primary weapon but that's a small issue. Damn good game.

Oh and I appreciate that it's not uber-shiny as it means I can run it on my laptop at 1440x900 with most options on and get good framerate.

[Samwise]

Tried medic yet?  His primary weapon (syringe gun) probably isn't as powerful as what you're looking for, but it is fully automatic.

[schild]

Medic gun is fucking vicious once you get the arc down.

[Strazos]

A bit late, but a sniper can easily defeat the medic+heavy combo. Fuck, I don't care how many medics the heavy has; it could be a heavy + 10 medics, I'm still killing that heavy in a single crit shot to the face.

But yeah, the comic is right: shoot the medic first. Then, watch the heavy run around like he just got his head cut off...well, only for moment, until you charge up another shot to Actually take the heavy's head off.

Or better yet, just cap the heavy, and watch the medic look confused as you then shoot him too.

[trias_e]

Man, I don't kill a medic'd heavy with a crit shot to the face.  Usually takes 3 if he has a medic on him.  With more than 1 medic, impossible.

Maybe I just don't charge up enough though.

I like stabbing the medic, then stabbing the heavy, then re-disguising as my prefered method.

[schild]

If you're all the way charged up, you can indeed kill a heavy with a medic in one shot. On the third leg of dustbowl, it's critical to kill the heavy first - the medic actually becomes a problem for the other team when he's running around scared to death - also, an easy target. On any other stage, I'd go for the medic first.

As a spy, there's no question, go for the medic first. Especially on Dustbowl. Everyone else is already aiming at the heavy.

Can you tell I like dustbowl?

[Slayerik]

I play Heavy and love it. Thanks to Grub for some healing love last night. I was on a tear last night....fuck I even was racking up Pyro kills!

Right now, order of kit favorites are:

Heavy
Scout
Soldier
Medic
Sniper
Pyro
Demo


I never play engi or spy, will eventually I guess



And BTW, get the fuck on Teamspeak guys....and the f13 server runs great for me. Thanks schild.

I kinda wasted some hours this weekend beating HL2, but I guess its about time huh? :)

[Quinton]

And BTW, get the fuck on Teamspeak guys....and the f13 server runs great for me. Thanks schild.

How does teamspeak interact with the builtin voice comms?  I've always found teamspeak to be incredibly cranky on my win32 machine and running it on the linux laptop sorta sucks too.  The TF2 voice comms stuff works great for me...

- Q

[Slayerik]

Well using in game voice i cant talk shit to my opponents on it :)

[Sky]

Ah, that was a fun time. I'm pretty rusty on the fps skills, but sticking to my trusty grenade launcher I didn't fare too badly. First round was hilarious as I just wandered around getting killed learning the map and weapons (on 2fort). Grenades to the head are crit kill fun. Sticky grenades are great defense, but I need to learn the mechanics on them because they disappear on me. I know they blow up after you hit the limit, but I planted some on the control point and switched to the grenade launcher, then when I switched back to detonate them they were gone. Ah, well. Still a great class, wish it had a gun though. Need to remember to pull out the bottle when people get up close, I'm very prone to terrorist attacks (blowing myself and my enemy up with a point-blank grenade), always have been.

Grub was killillating me pretty good as a heavy. Like the death sequence, nice touch. Definitely a solid game, wish I had better pings though.

Voice comms are still a no-go with me, for the same reasons I've iterated. I should probably bend a bit of mind-power to the situation, I admit.

[Mrbloodworth]

I may need to pick this up it seems.

[SnakeCharmer]

I may need to pick this up it seems.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking even though I suck ass supremely at FPS games.  This just looks too fun to miss.

The wife has layed down the law on game purchases since buying Bioshock, MoH: Airborne, TW '08 (which sucks, btw - buggy piece of shit), and preordering CoD: MW.

[Slayerik]

I may need to pick this up it seems.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking even though I suck ass supremely at FPS games.  This just looks too fun to miss.

The wife has layed down the law on game purchases since buying Bioshock, MoH: Airborne, TW '08 (which sucks, btw - buggy piece of shit), and preordering CoD: MW.

Man up, I wanna hose you down with my chaingun big boy

[SnakeCharmer]

Sounds kinky.

[Yegolev]

I planted some on the control point and switched to the grenade launcher, then when I switched back to detonate them they were gone.

No need to switch back to the stickygun, just rightclick.  I stuck three or four on the inside corner of the 2fort tunnel then lobbed some bouncies into the pond at a swimmer and possibly a turret, and when the swimmer followed me I just detonated his ass.  I like demoman, and I also need to remember to get out the bottle when in melee.

My voice wasn't working for whatever reason, although it is related to the sound card I installed yesterday, I'm sure.  TS works fine, I recorded a .wav file just fine, so I will fiddle with the TF2 settings since NONE OF YOU WERE ON TS.

EDIT: I proved my idea on de-turreting the intel desk, so huzzah.

[WayAbvPar]

OK- I got it installed and played a bit last night. I have no earthly idea wtf I am doing, however, having never played TF before. Can someone give me a breakdown of the different classes and their roles?


Also- my load times between maps is EXTREMELY LONG (like 15 minutes). I am guessing this ain't normal. Any suggestions?

[schild]

That's weird. Does the screen go black?

[Ookii]

I would love to know surefire Anti-Spy techniques.

I was playing yesterday defensively on dustbowl, the enemy team had like 4 spies which would destroy all of our sentries within 30 seconds of any given map started.

My team finally wised up to it, so on the second round of dustbowl at the last CP, we had two heavys next to two dispensers and 3 pyros guarding out sentries, and we still got raped by spies in the end.

That FreshFruity or FruityFresh (I forget his name) is the goddamn antichrist.

[WayAbvPar]

No- the load progress indicator jumps to about 75% completion and then just sits there. I have had to reboot to get out of it. One time I was able to load into the game. It seems like I can join a map in progress but can't switch maps with everyone else, but sample size is too small to make that definitive.

Edit-  I was answering schild, btw.

[Yegolev]

The classes are pretty archetypical in my opinion, although the medic and sniper have better autofire weapons than I would have guessed.  Scouts capture twice as fast.  Demoman doesn't have a shotgun like most everyone else.

The only surefire antispy technique I know of is fire, applied liberally and indiscriminately.  Or shoot anyone with your name.  Or shoot the predator-flicker when they bump into something, like a turret or teammate.

[Sky]

Spies are also my bane. Heavies may slightly edge them out for my total deaths, but spies are definitely the other main reason. The only other class I remember getting me alot was Pyro...when I lagged. Doubt it was video lag, since my ping was pretty high, but it could've been. Not much I can do about spies as a demo, but I have learned to use cover much better to avoid my massive heavy deaths...and some of that was practicing headshots on Grub ;)

I wish demoman had the bundles of dynamite, though. The odd glowy spiky balls just don't have a visceral feel to them. I also couldn't seem to stick them on people. Really, really need to be able to stick them on people. Load up a heavy's arse with 8 boomballs and wait until he is surrounded by some buddies...

I did see one guy with my name, didn't realize spies did that. Bounced a grenade off his head.

Actually, my policy is when in doubt, start bouncing grenades off things. I like demoman.

[Yegolev]

My policy is to unload all my clips before I die.  I favor "over a building" and "into a window", but I'm pretty indiscriminate.

[schild]

This is what I've learned about 2Fort to deal with scouts. Or rather, to deal with useful scouts, like me and jigglypuff.

[Sky]

That inside corner one is good. I spent lots of time playing combat engineer in Planetside (before they got all the new toys). Some of the best placements were behind cover from approaching fire, could hit all the chokepoint approaches, and would ideally nail enemies in the back, getting in some free shots before they even knew it was there.

The open staircase area is tough because of the layout, easy to sit in the room and take out the turrets, but I'm considering it from my demoman mindset... The one in the front battlement is kinda nice for protecting snipers/defenders backs, because that's how I generally died up there...but being immobile they wouldn't last long at all since it's an easy position to hit from across or below.

[MrHat]

When I'm engineer on 2fort I place a turret on that middle green spot at the top of the stairs, I further put a useless transport at the battlements as an indicator of a greedy scout or rocket jumper: they always kill the teleporter, then I know they're coming.

As for spies, just shoot everyone.  Dispensers mean you never have to worry about ammo.

[Slayerik]

OK- I got it installed and played a bit last night. I have no earthly idea wtf I am doing, however, having never played TF before. Can someone give me a breakdown of the different classes and their roles?


Also- my load times between maps is EXTREMELY LONG (like 15 minutes). I am guessing this ain't normal. Any suggestions?

WAP, here is my quick breakdown.

Do you like lobbing grenades? Grab a demo.

Do you like headshotting fucks? Grab a sniper.

Do you like suiciding groups of people? Grab a Pyro.

Do you like being a huge meatshield with unmatched close range firepower? Grab a heavy and call a medic.

Do you like racking up points healing huge meatshields? Grab a medic

Do you like speed, and abusing people with Louisville sluggers? Grab a scout.

Do you like obliterating people while taking a shit? Grab an engineer and upgrade the fuck out of your turret.

Do you like one-shotting and stealth? Grab a spy.

Do you like rocket spamming and bunny hopping? Grab a soldier.

[angry.bob]

The best place for a turret in 2fort is on the desk right on top of the plans, with the scanning arc covering both hallways. Put a dispenser next to the desk against the wall in that little nook. Then just stand there and shoot anyone who comes in the room and hit stuff with a wrench to repair it. Never in a million years will anyone get in the room without ubercharge, and then there's no way they're getting back out of your base.

I love this game and it reminds me how much fun the first one was before everyone on the planet had rocket/conc jumping scripts that made capping flags trivial.

ANd FruityFlesh is indeed the devil. Also, the server is way too popular as it took me 30 minutes to get on the server last night.