FF:QLD Serious Business - Let's Play Some Games Online

Definitely fun times - I was especially proud of you kids after our first major victory. That was really nice Proud to be cannon-fodder on a win like that. Heh.

 

[QldFF]Goob, honing my Medi-gun skillz. Hope to make the next hit-out.

 

Since TF2 is the primary vehicle for Serious Business around these parts, I thought I should probably link to this here. It's a little bit news about what's going to be coming from Valve in the next couple of months in terms up updates. 2 new maps is fantastic news. I'm not getting bored per se with the current crop, but some more variety will not go astray at all. Plus you all know I can't wait for the new medic achievements, even if this apparently leaked list suggests I'd be able to rack up almost all of them in a single protracted play session.

The most interesting piece of info, though, is this: That other content includes the forthcoming Medic achievement pack, which will add several new achievements for the Medic as well as a significant gameplay tweak for the class.

"It's a large scale modification to the core of the game," Walker hinted. "It'll debut in a limited fashion through the Medic first, but it'll be affecting all classes eventually."

I'm scratching my head as to what on earth that can mean. I'd heard a rumbling about this secret new feature, but it only mentioned the medic, so I'd been assuming it was, I dunno, the ability to drop health kits or something. But "affecting all classes"? Mysterious.

I'm sure it's going to rock, whatever it is, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

This is odd. I can't think of anything in the game the needs the core gameplay to be changed. TF2 is absolutely perfect just the way it is. Don't fix what ain't broke.

But because Valve are awesome and they love us all, I'm sure it'll be great.

Serious Business Wednesday - Chargin' Mah Medi-lazr

Wednesday - 7pm. Let's get everybody who has TF2 in .

(Also, what would be good is if we all join an empty server and we all get a group photo, in-game)

EDIT - And next time we're all in the one place, we need to furnish the Serious Businessmen with Worms Armageddon so we can add that to the roster. That'll probably be next Sunday. I've got a big stack of DVD's if somebody wants to volunteer a copy of the game.

 

Working.

I thought it was Serious Business Monday?

 

Likewise. No matter, though, I'll likely be around on Monday, so I can join you for some Seriousness then, Goob.

 

Sorry about that. I've changed the event, it's now on the correct day.

 

Well hey, Wednesday's good too. Why purely choose one over the other?

 

"Serious Business - Chargin' Mah Medi-lazr" was another success, and hopefully will be the first of weekly bouts of Serious Business.

It was great to have everyone on the same team again for a couple of games. Unfortunately we got split up once or twice due to the usual issues. However its fun to play against each other occasionally too. Unfortunately no patented Miracles (tm) occurred this time around.

I did manage to land the final capture on Dustbowl once my teammates and the QLDFFers on the other team had managed to wipe each other out in mutually assured destruction. That was fun. In revenge Sammich beat me to a pulp with his bare fists. I have a screenshot, but for some reason I can't view the file format. any suggestions?

I also finally got that damned Sentry Gunner Achievement

Can we call the next one "Serious Business - Let's Drink Beer and Shoot Things!" in honour of the classic Conroy Bumpus song and our new alcohol consumption policy?

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

Can we call the next one "Serious Business - Let's Drink Beer and Shoot Things!" in honour of the classic Conroy Bumpus song and our new alcohol consumption policy?

Sounds like a worthy title to me heh.

By the by, I've gone and changed my screen name over as the denizens of the interweb seem to keep thinking I'm a guy. I'm going to attibute this to the previously gender ambiguous screen name and the fact that I sound like a pre-teen boy via voice chat.

 

Heh, yeah, I do have to say that if I didn't know you and had only heard your voice over low-quality in-game chat I'd probably have leapt to the pre-teen conclusion too. Still, it was funny how everyone was calling that guy sexist for seeming so surprised.

Serious Business was great fun last night. Magnus has definitely got his Engineering skills down, and Goob was totally rocking the Medi-Lazor. He and I look to make a great pair, so long as we don't cross the streams. Sambo and Sasha continue to rack up obscene numbers of points, and Morgan continues to happily traipse through the carnage, calling herself "cannon fodder" but still managing to kill me more often than I'd like.

[image=http://homepage.mac.com/dezro/Serious%20Cat.jpg]
Serious Cat says: "WE MAKE GOOD TEAM."

 

Actually now remember - I took on sammich who was Heavy at the time, all by myself and actually beat him (usually this ends in a tragically hillarious explosion of limbs on my part). Teehee.

No, I think that guy was being called sexist because he was making generalistic comments like "girls suk so much at gaming lols" etc. He didn't readily accept that there were any female players present either, but that wasn't really sexist so much as dumb. Eh, doesn't really worry me though.

 

Apparently a friend of my brother's wants him to start playing TF2 so he can join her clan - so he's starting to warm up to the idea of getting his own darn steam account and likewise, his own copy of TF2 (Finally!).

He also comments that he'll be able to play against me and "Own (my) fase." Prolly true. I'll revel in every rocket-splatter-death of his however. Heheh.

 

Experience Morgan.
You'll pwn him. Enjoy knifing his back.


That's my bane. Spies and their damn knifes and sappers!

 

[image=http://homepage.mac.com/dezro/Serious%20Cat.jpg]
Serious Cat Says: Stop teh pressez! It are Serious Business Firday!


I'll be online from 7:30 or so. Be there or be a rectangular thing.

 

I'll be there like shareware ... Eventually. I heard tell those people who live in my house are doing indian for dinner, so I totally want to get in on that.

But after the indian, my serious cannon-fodder face will be on.

 

The beginning and the end of the seriousness was possibly the most fun I've had in TF2 to date (not including Christmas Miracles of course). My first foray of the evening, I ran into... which ever map it is that has captures A,B and C - ran into A and shot a random rocket dead on target and hit this guy... Another map I ran through a barricade of sentries to the sniper on the other side and blew him up quite spectacularly - then we lost and were defending and we started getting murdered. I had to log off for a bit and only managed to get back on by the time everyone else was leaving, but I stayed in for another few rounds and managed to take out two guys and capture a point all by my self before being bloodily torn to my component limbs. So great

And there's just something awfully satisfying about taking out a spy who is, for all intensive purposes, invisable. They explode so nicely.

 

Next Event

Serious Business Monday - Let's Drink Beer And Shoot Things!

 

Count me in, my man.

 

Ding ding ding! TF2 NEWS ALERT!

We finally have details on the "massive gameplay change starting with the medic" that's coming down the line from Valve! Unlockable upgrades. It sounds very much like BF2 in that they're upgraded weapons/kit, but the intriguing thing is that they'll be unlocked based on Achievements rather than on points or playtime or whatever. So they're rewards for mastering the class in question, not just grinding a bunch of points. I'm a tiny bit concerned about adding extra complexity to the game, or creating a BF2-like distinction between the haves and the have-nots, but given the comment that all the advantages of new kit will be balanced out by disadvantages points to Valve doing the right thing and making unlocks not better, just... different. Something new, to give players new tactical options. So now it's basically 100% confirmed that the Medic achievement pack is just the first, and there will be one for every class, accompanied by 2 unlockables (one for getting half the achievements, the other for getting them all). It also explains why the Medic Achievement pack I've been pining for has taken so long to arrive.

I like this idea, I think it could be pretty cool, and I know Valve are going to make sure it's exquisitely balanced, as evidenced by the fact that they're rolling it out so slowly and carefully to just one class to start with.

In that same article linked to above, we also have some news about the second of the 2 new maps coming in the next month or two. While Badlands is just a standard control point map, the second one has an ALL NEW gamemode called "Goldrush." Go read about it, it sounds crazy-awesome.

I'm not even slightly bored with TF2, but I can't wait for all this new content to hit. Mad props to Valve.

 

In every game I've played which has had unlockable weapons for people who have played longer, I haven't liked it. In Battlefield, the players with the super dooper unlocked gun usually dominate the battlefield. But, I'm going to give Valve the benefit of the doubt, because everything they've done with this game has been excellent.

Also, we're actually getting 3 new maps in the coming months. The first to be released is a CTF version of Well. It should be launched sometime today (Hopefully)

 

Yeah... there's always just one or two jerks around that make TF2 just that tiny bit less fun. I've never claimed to be any better than I am... I just play for the fun of it, despite my comparitive lack of skillz. You see, this is the real reason I hate auto-balancing (oh that, and I miss out on all the fine voice chatting - though the opportunity to very occasionally turn friends into minced meat is always fun, heh heh).

Good thing this game is just oodles of fun anyways, despite the one or two losers out there.

 

Hold tight for a rant, kids. Colourful descriptions of people who annoy me are contained within.

Last night was the first bad experience I've had playing TF2, the first time I've found the game at all unenjoyable. My first proper round on the new CTF_Well was a thoroughly miserable experience, but not for the reason you might think. It's the players that piss me off, not the map.

I like CTF_Well. Or, at least, I don't dislike it. I can't dislike it, because I don't actually know the first thing about how it plays. I find it very interesting, because it has a completely different CTF dynamic to 2Fort and I would very much like to get to know it, but unfortunately, that's being made a bit hard by the illiterate chimps I'm being forced to play with.

This being a new map that people don't know, every man and their dog decide that the best starting approach to it is to all play Scout, Spy and/or Sniper. That's alright, I can understand that. Irritates me like crazy, but I can understand it. Unfortunately, when the Spy-rush tactic fails to accomplish anything, it obviously has to be entirely the map's fault, so screaming from the rooftops about how terrible it is commences, as everyone changes to the "Hooting Dickhole" class (to poach a phrase from Yahtzee Crowshaw) and proceeds to collectively ruin the game for the one player on the map who actually would like to play it.

Seriously, it's enough to make me want to join a clan and quit playing on public servers altogether, which irritates me no end because I'm too casual a player to serve a clan properly, and I've had such great experiences on public servers for the whole time I've been playing. What is it about CTF that makes everyone shed a couple of hundred IQ points? My feelings on 2Fort are of tolerance at best, but at least people make an effort on that map.

I'm not entirely sure why I've got my knickers in such a painful twist over this. Maybe it's just the ratio of great games to painful ones. When I was playing BF2 it was easily 50-50, but TF2's been a joy. It severely aggravates me to have the Internet's Finest frak that up for me.


You hear that, Internet? Hope you feel ashamed of yourself. This garbage had better not happen when Badlands and Goldrush get released.

 

I'm okay with idiots on the servers I play on - I'll do what's needed and rack up the points.

What realy, really irks me is Spies. Ones that have played that class only from day one and think they own the game.
So I'm often cussing them for sapping and knifes, but that's to be expected when you're a spy. People hate you. What's amusing in a not-very-retributional way though, is when enemy Spies complain that you (as an angineer or whatnot), are shooting all of your teammates in case one is a spy.

 

I'll do what's needed and rack up the points.

Ever tried to be a medic for a bunch of spies, snipers and scouts? It makes you about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Same goes for trying to play as a lone soldier against a whole server of those classes. But like I said, it's not that in itself that's pissing me off, it's the attitude everyone on the server had. I really wanted that patent on strangulation via TCP/IP to be filed. I dunno, maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but it really got me riled up.