Team Fortress 2 now Free!

[3 Justin 3]

Not sure if it deserves it's own thread, but Team Fortress 2 is now Free to Play.

[Lionel Steel]

I posted this in the Video Game thread, but I think it deserves it's own thread.

I just started playing today and this game is amazing. The best multiplayer shooter I've played in a long time.

I've only done the tutorials and a few games against bots, but I'll start playing online soon.

Highly suggest trying it out.

[Hanni]

Absolutely love this game, I'm excited for all the fresh meat for me to kill.

[WilsonFourTwo]

^ Yup.

The fresh meat will lure me back for a while! This is such a good/fun game!

[burn_this_city]

Maybe I should give it a whirl, I played CS and Source religiously for years, but I never tried TF..

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Maybe I should give it a whirl, I played CS and Source religiously for years, but I never tried TF..

You've been missing out then my friend. This is a solid, solid game. I've played this game since it came out, few are more mindless fun than TF2. Goldrush is by far one of the most fun maps I've ever played.

[Hack&Lube]

I stopped playing when hats came out and all the classes got a bunch of weapons and unique items and then it became an MMORPG complete with cash shop. I don't feel like grinding achievements to unlock new weapons for every class.

What the game has turned into is not something I enjoy very much anymore I was a big fan of Team Fortress Classic that came with Half-Life and played that quite a bit. TF2 never lived up to that for me.

I still miss the Classic Dustbowl and Avanti maps instead of the aberrations that are their TF2 counterparts. The gameplay has never been as exciting as TFC even though TF2 is much more polished and good looking.

[burn_this_city]

You have to unlock stuff? I hate that, especially when the game has been around forever. I'm still going to try it though, if its still super popular there has to be a reason.

[Hanni]

There are a few achievement based items, but only a few. Pretty well every item in the game will drop randomly and you pretty quickly end up with an assortment of weapons for doing nothing but playing. There is a store where you can buy items, but all items do randomly for free so you don't need to buy anything.

If anyone does start playing and would like some free stuff shoot me a pm and I'll do what I can to give you some items. After a while of playing you end up with duplicates of many items and I have no use for most of them. Obviously I don't have an unlimited number so it would need to be first come first serve.

[photon]

You don't have to unlock stuff at all.

There are other weapons than your default set of weapons but what they are and how to get them differs greatly from an unlock system.

First, there are multiple ways to get them. You can unlock some of them via achivements if you wish. Many achievements are easy to get just during normal play, or if you really want to there are achievement servers where people go to help each other get them.

Or you can just wait, just playing the game gives you random drops of weapons. Getting a few per play-session is common, and again if you really want you can go on an idle server where you just sit in game for forever doing nothing but getting the random drops.

And you can craft the desired weapons as well. If you get random drops of items you already have, you can craft those into metal and then use the metal to craft new weapons.

Or you can trade for them. If you have an extra weapon of one kind and someone has an extra of another kind, you can just trade.

So getting the extra weapons is pretty easy, the update came out last night and I already have 4 of the new weapons from crafting and playing a bit.

Second, it's not like some shooters where you have to unlock weapons to get the decent ones, the default weapons are still pretty much the best ones to have. In a few cases a different weapon is a pure upgrade, but mostly they are just supportive of different play styles or different player skills. Most are too gimicky for a serious player to use and are actually a disadvantage to use, or at best are very situational.

The Pyro for example gets a default flame thrower. There's two other ones, one does more damage if you burn the guy from behind, but uses up far more ammo to do the airblast (reflect projectile weapons). This sucks for the most part as getting behind a good team is quite difficult, but on some maps at some points there are great opportunities for ambushes so this works in some situations. The other does less damage but gives you faster weapon switch speed. Again supports a specific style of play where you use your melee weapon a lot, which puts you in close and more vulnerable.

Almost all the weapons are like this, very specific tradeoffs. I play mostly on a server where the guys are pretty competitive (some play in leagues and competitive play) and with all the variety and choices you'd be surprised that a good deal of the time the best players use default weapons.

Give it a try, and don't worry so much about the unlocks. By the time you really understand the benefit or need for a specific unlock, you'll probably have the means to get it. I'm a pack rat and have to get all the weapons and I usually have them a few weeks after they're released with little extra effort.

[photon]

Oh and I'm mixed about free to play. I tried playing last night but there's nothing more frustrating than playing with n00bs. I mean I'm not the greatest player, but when the n00b medic doesn't heal and the rest of your team is snipers and spys it's not very fun.

[Tinordi]

What server you play on Pho?

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I stopped playing when hats came out and all the classes got a bunch of weapons and unique items and then it became an MMORPG complete with cash shop. I don't feel like grinding achievements to unlock new weapons for every class.

What the game has turned into is not something I enjoy very much anymore I was a big fan of Team Fortress Classic that came with Half-Life and played that quite a bit. TF2 never lived up to that for me.

I still miss the Classic Dustbowl and Avanti maps instead of the aberrations that are their TF2 counterparts. The gameplay has never been as exciting as TFC even though TF2 is much more polished and good looking.

Gotta disagree with this. After new drops and hats came out it was a bit of a scene but the community has settled down and the game still plays very traditionally. The new weapons really haven't changed how the game is played at a fundamental level at all. If anything it's more fun than ever (except with all the noobs now coming in).

[photon]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

What server you play on Pho?

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/arsclantf2

sasha.arsclan.net:27015

Most of the time there. Have a bunch of others that I frequent when I'm not on there, but can't remember their names.

[RW99]

I agree with Hack for the most part. I haven't kept up with all the new weapons. Sometimes I wonder how the heck I get killed and it's usually a newer weapon that cancels out what would have been my advantage.

I still play a fair bit though as I have a bunch of online friends I play with. But I rarely play on a random pub. You can usually find me on a Lotus Clan server.

[photon]

Yeah the lotus clan servers are ok, go there sometimes.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Can't remember the last time I played a FPS on a PC, well, any game. Played a bit of this early this morning, seems fun.

[RedJester]

Just a heads up to you new guys; I have never played a video game that has filled me with more rage as TF2. You will constantly be presented with moments where you're left wondering "how the bloody ****ing hell that just happened."

It's okay, because those moments are as equally as common as the fun ones, because I have also never had as much fun playing a video game than I have while playing TF2.

Valve is great at balancing weapons and classes, and the game itself doesn't take itself too seriously. It's hard to get too upset about all the bad stuff in this game, because you're often left laughing afterwards.

[BlackArcher101]

LOL, so I got labelled as one of the noobs today. Apparently I don't know how to use the medic because I'm not following just the Heavy. How dare I heal others on the team instead of just one.

And I get this a lot. *facepalm*

Nothing irritates me more than when I'm playing a non-medic role and need to be healed. Medic is standing right beside me, but ignores my call because he's busy healing a Heavy that isn't injured. And won't leave the guy for even a second to heal others. Fuuuuuuuuuu Worse when 3 of them do it. I can understand if you have an ubercharge ready and want to be ready at a moments notice, but that doesn't apply in these cases.

[Hack&Lube]

For new players, make sure you increase your field of view from default 75 to 90. You'll get more peripheral vision.