How to scare off the Orange Box n00bs

by madlep on October 11th 2007

So you’ve been playing TF2 beta since it came out a whole 3 weeks ago. You’ve cut your teeth sniping on 2fort, spent hours baby sitting sentries, and yelled for more medics than you’ve had hot dinners. You’re a hardcore, old school TF2 player. You’re a pro. An artist. A finely tuned dealer of death.

tf2_soldier.jpg

But now the Orange Box is unleashed on the public at large, and you’re staring down a loss of balance with the natural order of things.

What can you do about it?

  1. Act all indignant. Valve created this game for you alone. Now all these new kids are coming along and ruining your fun. Bitch, whine, complain about every little thing. Some guy just got a lucky shot on you? Must be a n00b. Make sure the entire server knows about it, and preferably every forum you can think of.
  2. Point out your superiority. Tell everyone that you’ve had the game installed since the start of beta. Thats a pretty big head start. If you do the maths, it obviously equates to about 5000% more skill than someone who has only had the game on their system for an hour. You have the power of life and death over them, which you will exercise if they don’t bow to you as a god.
  3. More generic point wh*ring. Keep on sniping and laying down turrets. If some n00b manages a lucky shot and takes you out, see #1. Objectives always were, and still are irrelevant.
  4. Defense stack! Everyone knows that CTF maps aren’t designed to be won, but as a test of will. Its kinda like soccer. The perfect form has both teams camped up in their own base awaiting the other team to never attack. The loser is the team that has to pee, or falls asleep. Whichever comes first.
  5. Call for nerfs/buffs. If a certain class is owning you, its an obvious sign of a defective, unbalanced game design. You’ve played 3 weeks, and you’re a veteran player that knows best. Jump on the forums and demand affirmative action from the devs right away!
  6. Decry nerfs/buffs. If they devs do listen to player feedback, and actually do implement changes, they are obviously wrong. Complain and make them change the game back.
  7. Misunderstand the classes. Obviously the pyro should be able to take on a sniper in the open, and the scout should be able to outgun a heavy. The flawed game design is stopping you play at your best. See #5 and Demand action!
  8. Claim that feature X will hurt competitive gameplay. Everyone knows its all about the pro clan games. If something in the game makes that more difficult then its time to start a forum flame war.
  9. Claim that feature Y will hurt public server casual gameplay. Everyone knows its all about the casual public games. If something in the game makes that more difficult then its time to start a forum flame war.
  10. Remind everyone how much better it was “back in the day”. Three weeks ago during beta, things were different. It rained unicorn giggles, cats and dogs lived happily together, and players danced merrily into the long summer evenings. Everything was good. Now, everything is bad. The only thing different is the n00bs joining. Make sure everyone knows this. If possible try to maintain a clique of like minded players, and mock any who dare approach.

I can completely understand your frustration. I know its tough, but as we’ve discussed here, there are positive steps you can take to help the situation. With a little effort we can all work together to eventually scare off all the n00bs and reduce the size of the TF2 community back to what it was during the beta – or with a little luck even to what it was like pre-beta!

Good luck.

20 Comments »

madlep on October 11th 2007 in how to

Stumble it!

20 Responses to “How to scare off the Orange Box n00bs”

  1. ShanDogs responded on 12 Oct 2007 at 10:41 am #

    Good too see a fellow veteran finally tell these kids how it is. I shall start right away.

  2. Duente responded on 17 Oct 2007 at 12:49 pm #

    Errm…

    WTF is this shit?

  3. Zarathustra responded on 17 Oct 2007 at 2:52 pm #

    too funny. :)

    #2 seemed particularly popular during my session today. I don’t know how many times I heard someone laying down the law and telling people that they sucked.

    Another guy kept yelling at me to stop standing still cuz the other team had snipers. Told me I had to dance. Ever seen a Heavy dance while spraying bullets? :)

    Glad I stumbled on Ubercharged. I’ll be back after I teach my Heavy to two-step.

  4. madlep responded on 18 Oct 2007 at 9:18 pm #

    I’d totally be keen for dancing heavies.

    We should request Valve put it in. It adds a huge new tactical element.

  5. koopa responded on 19 Dec 2007 at 2:10 am #

    Haha :D nice guide!

  6. Andrew responded on 23 Feb 2008 at 9:00 pm #

    We should try and get GameArena to put it at their MOTD on all their servers.

  7. CW responded on 14 Apr 2008 at 2:23 pm #

    Quote [Duente responded on 17 Oct 2007 at 12:49 pm]:
    “Errm…

    WTF is this shit?”

    n00bs…They never die.

  8. Ceiling Cat responded on 12 Nov 2008 at 10:57 am #

    Maybe I shouldn’t buy TF2…

  9. TheJigglingObeise responded on 03 Dec 2008 at 8:23 pm #

    Heavies do the waltz of death already.

  10. Mwdkikuf responded on 14 Dec 2008 at 4:48 am #

    Thanks!,

  11. Ace Of Spades responded on 12 Feb 2009 at 4:26 am #

    Um… Yea, some parts WERE funny… But if a veteran really wrote this… how CAN you say it wasn’t better “Back in the days”

  12. LOLWUT responded on 22 Feb 2009 at 10:38 am #

    AKA how to be an asshole..

  13. dustin responded on 28 Mar 2009 at 9:21 pm #

    the most annoying of these are the people who complain about pyros needing to be nerfed. no, they are not too powerful, no they dont need less health, no they dont need to be slower. you just suck.

    tf2 is perfect.

  14. House.Keeper responded on 13 Apr 2009 at 9:38 am #

    “tf2 is perfect.” pretty damned close! When people play it right, it can be the most balanced game play around.

    “AKA how to be an asshole..”
    *whoosh*
    That’s the sound of this article going right over your head. Sarcasm detector is broken?

    Very funny, I wish I had discovered ubercharged years ago!!! This site rules.

  15. Notebooked responded on 06 Jul 2009 at 11:20 pm #

    I… …I am a noob. And I regret it.

    …I’m sorry for ruining the game experience for everyone. I really am.

  16. Gyl responded on 12 Aug 2009 at 11:53 am #

    Valve intended to sell their games, not scare away folks so they don’t buy it. By being an asshole to noobs you are potentially scaring away precious wads of cash, which can be put forward for nice things such as content updates and more games.

    If anything, I’d do my best to help them out. Who knows? Perhaps they’d become the next generation of cold-blooded spies that decimate entire teams of enemies, or the next generation of third party content makers.

    But what am I saying? This article probably wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously.

  17. Thingy Person responded on 31 Aug 2009 at 7:54 am #

    @Gyl

    “But what am I saying? This article probably wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously.”

    No durr, really? I guess this proves respectable people can be incredibly dense sometimes, too.

    This article may be older than the internet but I had to throw that out here.

  18. SvenBoogie responded on 23 Oct 2009 at 9:39 am #

    The completely serious, offended replies to this article are in some ways funnier than the article itself.

  19. T responded on 07 Nov 2009 at 2:58 pm #

    I am a NOOB and I shall laugh as I die. muhahaha!

  20. tribestone responded on 12 Jan 2010 at 3:20 pm #

    Unbeliveable, this article is like 3 years old…and it is still relevant today. Brilliant!

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