[TF2] It's MANN Vs. Machine!

[Orpheus]

Shiny, I added you. Go ahead and hop onto Steam when you get around to it.

[obfuscator]

As much as the idea of micro-transactions annoys me, I think it makes sense from a business standpoint.

I find it hard to beleive valve made any money off TF2 in the first place despite the huge member base - this is a way they can make some more money without having to charge more to play or really affect the gameplay. Also doesn't hurt that tf2 players are hat-crazy...

[Jernlov]

Yeah, it's sensible. It's not like it's game-changing stuff anyway - most of it is novelty and there for fun. I wouldn't mind it if they kept it this way at all but yeah, not fond of them myself either. Also these things are really simple to craft so you can do whatever. I feel the minigame should be free though but whatever.

 

Can't wait to see the inevitable whine about this stuff though. I will say The Holy Mackerel is one of the best additions this game has ever had.

[Orpheus]

You can get the items anyway through random drops. Buying them just nets you them a bit faster.

[Brad25891]

In the interview they said they make more than enough off of team fortress alone to keep the development up for TF2.

 

PC Gamer: Youve said TF2 makes more money than it costs to keep developing why introduce another revenue stream?

 

Robin Walker: We never really think about the money TF2 makes when were thinking about what to do.

 

In this case, the thing that we are trying to build is a framework for a more robust collaboration with the community on content creation. This has been one of TF2s main drives for some time now. In other games, community creators build content after the release, and it forever remains inaccessible to most players. At the start of this year we unveiled the TF2 Contribute page, which was the first step to moving past that model, pushing community created content into the ongoing development of the game itself.

 

We view the Mann-conomy as the next, crucial step in the evolution of how communities interact with products. Now theyll not only be able to contribute to the product, they will be directly compensated for their work.

[Shiny]

I think it is an interesting introduction. From a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense - I imagine TF2 not making a huge amount of revenue for team-fortress two. From an additional, third-party developer standpoint, if you have items in the polycount contest and were chosen, it is always nice to make a bit of revenue of it , I guess. Everything is still available for 'free' as such, anyway. Overall, nothing much has changed, now nubs who can't craft or want some cool changes to existing gear can pay for it. Paying for gear doesn't heavily weigh in the payee's favour, they don't get much huge bonuses for the items they have paid for. I imagine for competitive players who want to utilise a set effect, it might be useful. The whole crafting system, connections with Steam and the store server have been up and down each morning. I couldn't get any trading items to work. I did manage to craft the pyro's new melee weapon, and am waiting for a trade for the buff banner. The degreaser (the weapon) looks a bit awful though, the hat amazing.

 

Favourite polycount class to date? I think the whole sniper set effect is interesting. You cannot be headshotted, but on the flip side, you cannot head-shot. And scouts, having a fair lot of health, but lacking in firepower?

 

Very interesting overall. I am in favour of trading. Anyone want to trade an Engineer's cap for something?

[Giordano]

I don't care if its only cosmetic items, the fact if micro transactions start up its very easy to make better weapons for those who pay.

[Jernlov]

I played for an hour and a half after the update and it has lost a lot of appeal now.

 

Too much stuff. It's a goddamn FPS, not an MMO. Christ. And that is my biggest problem with this game - instead of working with what they already had, they keep adding new stuff which usually does nothing but affect the experience negatively. I can't even keep up - everything default is perfectly fine and they should have fine-tuned the game around those things and quit with all the dumbed-down elements.

 

Marketing this game to casuals is not something I would have done because it is still a fantastic competitive game, but Valve insist on working against people who enjoy bettering themselves and trying to play properly in favour of people wanting it easy. It is now really hard to get any practice done in pub and it will be for a while.

 

Also Source is a kind of bad engine for multiplayer - I feel punished because my connection is good and the hitboxes are so stupid as well. That's a different point for a different time, however.

 

Some of you are going to rage at me for being "no fun" but honestly I have more fun when I have to try and win rather than just going easy mode and getting a million points and dominations. It's not what this game is about for me.

[Shiny]

Meh, I haven't found the same problem as you. I went on to a server which had boycotted the new weapons and micro-transactions and it was fine. Had the best trade ever before, powerjack + battalion for tyrants helm and engi cap. Traded the engi cap for noble ammasment.

[Nadril]

That is always the thing though, you can play on vanilla servers if you want.

 

Don't get me wrong I stopped playing because I couldn't keep up with all the items and such but this update doesn't bother me that much.

[Shiny]

More items are still to be released. Also, I took the liberty to change the title, to something more fitting. If you have a problem, ask me to change it back.

[Jaziek]

Who changed the topic name?

 

oh, ok shiny. nice one.

 

I have kinda stopped playing the game, although I'll come back for a few hours to see what this update is all about.

[Shiny]

I thought you stopped playing, so I changed it :P

 

EDIT: I am very pleased with myself. Ended my TF2 day with Stainless Steel Pot, Officers Ushanka, Noble Amassment of Hat, Tyrant's Helm, Old Guadalajara, the black box, the new buff-bannery thing and the eternal reward.

 

Very pleased :thumbsup:

[Furah]

I think we need to sort of 'change owner' by specifying who becomes the new thread owner and locking this one/letting it die. If Steam would hurry up and let me download the last 150MB, I could see if I like this update.

[Shiny]

What do you mean?

[Furah]

As Jaziek has stated, he doesn't really play this game any more. If someone who played regularly were to make a new thread then they could keep everything up-to-date. Although, this is only if Jaziek would be ok with it.

[Jernlov]

That is always the thing though, you can play on vanilla servers if you want.

 

Don't get me wrong I stopped playing because I couldn't keep up with all the items and such but this update doesn't bother me that much.

There aren't any of them that I get a decent ping time to. Maybe I should suck it up and play vanilla over the pond or something, I don't know. It would definitely be nice to play on a proper server again but I'm going to take a break for now anyway. I'm seeing this game as incredibly silly and dumbed-down now, even compared to what it was when I picked it up again at the start of the year. [e: found a bunch of EU servers hiding somewhere which I might check out]

 

But yeah. Ignore me because I'm just bitter. I have to say I'm mostly pissed off about the Scout pack in terms of gameplay because I actually had to learn how to be decent at it. I saw someone with the new gun + milk survive a full-on encounter with a heavy last night. I chose to main Scout because I don't like my games to be easy and now this comes along and turns a class I actually had to work at into casual crap.

 

[i actually wrote a longer post but I just woke up and hadn't straightened my thoughts out yet]

 

Store isn't a big deal for me because it's optional. I don't think it's that bad. I'll probably check it out after the fixes have gone in so that I won't rage but I'll take a break for now.

[Nadril]

As Jaziek has stated, he doesn't really play this game any more. If someone who played regularly were to make a new thread then they could keep everything up-to-date. Although, this is only if Jaziek would be ok with it.

 

Eh it's not a huge deal. After all the WoW thread has been running for years with the opening post being a "." by me :P.

[Shiny]

The scout's milk will get nerfed to hell, I think.

[Jernlov]

I have to say this is all growing on me quite a bit. At the end of the day, I don't want it to be another Counter-Strike and it's TF2. There's a lot wrong with TF2, but I do genuinely love the game and wouldn't want it any other way.

 

Scout's stuff isn't that bad after playing against people with it. As a scout who uses the vanilla layout then I can't say it's overpowered and it actually puts them at a disadvantage. Shortstop seems to do a bit too much damage at long-range though. It's not quite so brilliant when you're playing soldier though - got killed when I was ahead purely because it fires so fast and the falloff is a bit broken. Milk isn't too bad if you're scout v. scout because you can still 2-shot people and consistent scouts are very rare in public games. It's more of a problem with the slower classes and snipers.

 

I main scout so balance issues don't generally affect me as much as others. Please don't buff engineer though Valve, they're already strong enough.

[Shiny]

I'm really liking the new soldier weapons. Have a black box, with battalion. Quite good for payload pushes, combined with an ubered heavy cleaning out sentries.

[Jernlov]

They seem pretty good.

 

I think the new spy knife is useless with anything except the DR. I was just using it now with the normal watch and then the DR, and I did quite well with the second combo. The DR nicely negates the disadvantage of being disguised by the knife because you can get killed, cloak and appear behind everyone and chainstab again. I think it's quite balanced on its own because you can't hear it at all whereas the DR is impossible to hear in battle. But yeah, as I said, largely useless without the DR because you can't disguise yourself at will.

[DarkDude]

 

Got that out of my 2nd crate, 1st gave me black paint. 3rd one gave me a sombrero and I have a 4th that needs opening now...

[Shiny]

I got a sombrero and nametag out of my crates. Quite pleased.

[Tim]

WHOA!! What's this about crates and stuff?