ubercharged.net

When you open your server-browser and you try to find a nice server (excluding servers from your favourites-tab), how do you prioritise? Do you search for your favourite map? Do you try to find a server with certain tags like InstaSpawn or increased max. player or no crits? Or are you looking for a certain player count? Some people tend to visit almost full servers where only one last seat is available. It’s a quick jump into the game which guarantees instant action and full immersion. There you will find people, who are not like entities, but more like speckles or spots on something. Randomly generated characters.
But maybe you are the kind of player who likes to be the first to civilize a server by playing the pioneer and breathing some fresh air. In this case, you will be able to experience the map without any distractions like bloody gibs laying on the floor or voices yelling across the hallways. Of course you could just create your own local server for this purpose, but there is a difference between these places, a psychological one which makes it more interesting to be on a real server, because it’s still a public space although it’s only a virtual one.

Aside from these two common types, there are countless other possibilities to waste your time instead of playing the actual game. I usually prefer to search for servers where the player count is very close to zero. One, two or maybe three players are perfect. In this case, you can expect to join an ongoing game, which still offers intimacy. And unlike a game with 23/24 players, you will have the time to get to know each player.
So, after finding and joining a 2fort-server with an 1/24 player count, I mindlessly scanned the map as a Scout. To my surprise, the other person on this server was in my team, brazenly ignoring the rules of auto-balancing. I wasn’t able to find him anywhere, maybe he was afk.

I got bored, then I invited some friends. While I was standing on the roof of the bridge, which connects the two forts in 2fort, I finally discovered the other person on this server. He was standing in front of me, and he was a scout too. I quickly typed “Hi” in the message window, but he didn’t reply. In fact he was just standing there and doing nothing. I got bored again, so I jumped on the sniper deck, where I continued to wait for my friends. Funnily enough he was following me. There was a sound of movement, and suddenly he was standing right behind me. Because of curiosity and boredom, I started to run as fast and tricky as possible. Was he still behind me? It took me almost two laps around 2fort to realize that he was still close behind me. Feeling a big desire to act against this oddity, I tried to think things over but I was absolutely unable to think about anything. I had to change my class. After 14 seconds of maddening waiting, I finally spawned as a Heavy. My friends will come soon enough, that’s what I was thinking.
Slowly heading deeper into the sewers of 2fort, I met him again. He was a Heavy, once again imitating my behaviour. But this time, the atmosphere was different. The appearance of the Heavy changed everything. Although having the characteristics of a child, a Heavy confronts the world with his inner calmness, with his noble soul, which originates from his Russian nature.

The clock of doom had struck as fated,
the Heavy, without a sound,
let his Minigun fall on the ground

Who was the man behind that Heavy? Did he try to scare or grief me? What was his intention?
Let us imagine for a moment that we were twins, that we had been born twin brothers, and nothing else – there it is! Well, what of it?
Why, nothing! All the players can get used to it . . . And an outsider, coming into our game, would certainly find nothing unseemly or offensive in the circumstance. In fact, there is really something touching . . . to think that the divine providence created two men exactly alike . . . it would, of course . . . it would, of course, have been better if there had been . . .
. . . if there had been nothing of this touching kindness, and if there had been no twins either . . . The devil take it all! But what if . . . what if they get us mixed up! . . . Ah, Lord, have mercy upon us!

In the following 10 minutes, three friends of mine joined that game. This brought back a light into this dark session. Since the beginning, there was no joy and no fun at all.
At least now I wasn’t alone anymore. I told them the whole story and I was making fun of the sanity of that freak behind the Heavy. My friends nodded, they looked at each other, but they didn’t answer. My look-alike began to move, independently turning his back and switching his weapons. I was relieved and I had to laugh about him. Finally he gave up, maybe he just grew tired . . .

“You worthless fellow, you are drunk! Go to sleep now, you ruffian!” said one of my friends to me. “And tomorrow you’ll maybe catch it” another one added in a voice hardly audible.
My double laughed, then he walked away with my friends . . .

Things just went wrong from now on

What the hell was going on? I was more dead than alive in that moment. I couldn’t even respond. It was a shock. Recognizing that I had been turned into ridicule and treated with contempt in the presence of my double, I rushed in pursuit of him. Unfortunately, that scene wouldn’t end with a classic “It was a Spy all along”-punchline.
They’re all in a conspiracy together,” I said to myself.
“They stand by each other and set each other on to attack me.”
After taking a dozen steps, however, I received clearly that all pursuit would be vain and useless, and so I turned back. But my fake copy wouldn’t get away like that, he would get caught. The wolf will have to pay for the sheep’s tears, you know . . .
Everything, apparently, and even nature itself, seemed up in arms against me. But I was still on my legs and unconquered. At least I felt that I was unconquered. I was ready to struggle. I rubbed my hands with such feeling and such energy when I recovered from my first amazement that it could be deduced from my very air that I would not give in.

Yet the danger was imminent, it was evident. I felt it. But how to grapple with it, with this danger? That was the question . . .
I was unhappy, and I wanted to end this carnival and after all, I just wanted to hunt down my demons. My blood beat faster, there was no need for comfort and a plan. I was speeding towards them. My calm was gone . . .

“You’re a gentleman,” they said to me. “You shouldn’t have gone murdering people with a kukri, that’s no occupation for a gentleman.”

I hope I have done nothing . . . nothing reprehensible . . . or that can call for severity . . . and general attention in regard to my official relations . . . but it was too late . . .
I shrieked and clutched my head in my hands. Alas! For a long while I had been haunted by a presentiment of this. My double, in his usual nasty way, pretended to be shocked, yet I knew his true feelings.
I killed two men . . . I took a last look on all and everything, and, shivering like a kitten that has been drenched with cold water – I accepted the consequences . . . the consequences . . .

They fixed me a pretty decent Sandvich for my last meal. They even threw in a Blu Streak, the first I’ve had since back at Jimi Jam’s.
Then they shaved my head and fixed me with a rubber diaper. And got to it.
And it was about damn time, if you ask me

Death . . . the dead know only one thing: it is better to be . . . oops, sorry, I drifted off a little bit. Now back to reality. Well, I was just kicked from the server, because I accidentally left my headset on, which transferred all my weird speeches into the game . . . sometimes my mind plays a trick on me. This one was pretty big. But seriously, don’t underestimate what happens on your Team Fortress 2 server.

Thx to my mate KaneXLS for the pictures. Take a look at the full pictures.

Author’s note: Loyal readers, (Have we known each other long enough, can I call you Loyal Readers, or is that too personal?) I know you must all be sick of these kinds of articles by now, but I guess the writing staff at Ubercharged.net has spring fever, and there are very few of us around, so you guys will have to take what you can get until the spring fever goes away.

Anyway, in eight months we’ll have had Team Fortress 2 in our game libraries for two years. That’s a big milestone. Two years of playing maps. Two years of updates. Two years of Demoman nerfs. We’ve had all this time to play Team Fortress 2, and observe the classes.

But what if the classes had the chance of observe us? What if they all knew they were in a video game? How would they react when exposed to Valve and the community?

Scout: I see the Scout taking the realization that he’s a video game character the best. He would get a huge ego boost over the fact that there were people playing as him all over the world. He would join the Steam forums and be annoyingly pro-sandman. Anything to give himself an edge.

Soldier: The Soldier would probably be disappointed in most Soldier players. He’d probably think anyone with less than a thirty kill streak unworthy of playing him. When introduced to the real world, he would find a job in management and whip some maggot department into shape.

Pyro: To quote the Pyro himself, “Mrph mrmm mm mp mrm mmmm!”

Demoman: Demoman would be very angry at Valve for nerfing him so much. He’d question the sensibility of nerfing the Demoman on the word of only the Steam forums. Then, finding that nobody was listening to him, he’d get drunk on the strongest booze he could find.

Heavy: Heavy would tell the Steam forum users to cry some more, then go join a real wrestling league and beat up puny babies untill he was fired for being too violent with his defeated enemies. After that, he would probably join the military. Heavy would love all those fancy new automatic weapons.

Engineer: Engineer would be one of the most unaffected by the revalation. In fact, I see him going to work for Valve. The image of him whacking away at the Half-Life episode 3 demo with his wrench is pretty funny. Maybe he’ll make it so you’ll get scurvy if you pirate it.

Medic: Medic would find no companionship with actual doctors. He would be severely disappointed with the lack of hurting within the medical practice. Perhaps he could get along with pediatricians. Most likely, he would follow Heavy into the army and revolutionize battlefield medicine with the ubercharge. Or many not, Team Fortress 2 tactics would never work in a real-life battle.

Sniper: Sick of being hated all the time, the Sniper would flee Team Fortress 2 and everything related to it. He could take up assassination and make millions, or maybe get his own reality show. “The Wankerdile Hunter.” I forsee big bucks no matter what career path the Sniper takes.

Spy: The Spy would probably be motified at this revalation. All his secret operations laid bare for the world to see. He would disappear into the real world, and no one would hear from him again… Or would they? Mysterious deaths and corporate takeovers abound.

The Announcer: Fools, she already knows. Most likely, every world leader is under the Announcer’s thumb somehow. She also runs Valve, Gabe Newell is her cofee-boy.

See you on the other side, friends.

If you have recently expierienced head truama and care about what Sheepshifter is doing these days, check out his twitter by copy and pasting the following address into your browser because he cannot figure out how to make links all fancy right now. https://twitter.com/Sheepshifter

Dear Responders,

It is true that I only play on the Xbox 360 version, which may be confusing when you consider one of my previous posts regarding Arena Mode.  That was a article I wrote based on how the PC community thinks, completely from the outside looking in, and, ultimately, I had little idea what I was talking about.  This article is different because I know very much what I am speaking of.  I should mention, however, that, when I play, I often add people to My Friends if they communicate significantly.  I do not play in a clan, just with people who talk.

Therefore, when I was taking my “survey” of the match sizes, I was giving a result from a very team-orientated, communicative pool.  I understand that many Xbox players are silent, but usually if you start talking someone will respond (since everyone has a headset), and pretty soon you have an excellent team coordinating its efforts.

I am surprised that you Xbox players that commented have big turnouts of 2Fort when you search for matches.  That phase ended months ago, and it is so converse to what I experience that I have doubt you actually play anymore.  When I search for matches, 2Fort only shows up, MAYBE, every other time.  The most popular map on the 360 is definitely Dustbowl.  If you do a custom search for matches, you can always find what you want to play, any time of the day, I guarantee it.

Also, if you think that there were more than 3 patches for the Xbox version of the game, you might want to check this site, it is very reliable.  Thanks for reading!

I play on the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2.  I know, I know: some of you will be cruel to me and others overly sympathetic.  But it really isn’t bad.  After all, it is still Team Fortress 2.

You see, we have a massive update coming and there is a good chance that we will be getting servers (that were previously hosting Left4Dead matches) to play Team Fortress 2 on.  With the multicore update up and running, we can also expect better framerate and, possibly, better graphics.  It is all very exciting, but there is one thing that servers will bring that we don’t want, and that is this:

Thankfully, Valve has stood by its standard of 24 players, so we don’t have to worry about what is happening in that screenshot, but I think you might be surprised to hear that a majority (136 of the 157 I contacted in public matches, which is a little less than 90%) think that 24 players is still too much to have in the six maps available to us.

Why do we think this way?  Well, we have to look at the history of Team Fortress 2 on Xbox 360 to understand.  The game was released on October 10, 2007, and since then, the 360 version has received exactly 3 patches, and the sole purpose of one was to fix a mistake that occurred in an earlier patch.  We have never had a new map or even had exploit/skywalking fixes on the maps we do have.

When it first came out, it was in the time between the releases of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4.  Additionally, it had severe lag problems caused by people trying to host matches far larger than their connection could actually support.  These two factors would ensure that the game would have limited success on the console, but the community was by no means small, and still isn’t small, as you can find exactly the kind of match you want at any time of the day, usually with a choice of hosts.

What does this all mean?  It means that the people who are playing the game really do want the unique teamwork aspect that Team Fortress 2 has to offer and aren’t there to spam or go solo.  If they were looking for a fragfest or a mindless deathmatch, they would have plenty of other outlets.  In summary, since Team Fortress 2 on Xbox LIVE isn’t that popular, it attracts only the type of people who truly want to experience teamwork and intellectual, strategic combat.

Naturally, their is also exceptions to this rule, and we definitely have our share of griefers, modders and hackers, but they are increasingly avoided by the community as ruiners of the game.

The most popular match size is 16 players (also the maximum allowed), and everyone who owns an Xbox is guaranteed to have a headset.  There is no such thing as all-talk, only teamspeak, and you don’t have to touch any buttons to talk.

All these things (a devoted community, a small rotation of maps, and technical ease of communication) make for very clan-like, competitive games.  Spam isn’t really an option with 16 players, but we fear it may become one with 24.  It is easy to coordinate a team of 8 or less, but a team of 12 might lead to singular thinking and Rambo players.

We would like to see an increase to 18 players on all maps, but only to allow the nine classes to be used simultaneously on one team.  24 is way too much, Valve, unless its Badwater Basin or the map that the community is more excited for than any other:

So, Valve, please do not make the mistake of 12v12 matches on the Xbox 360!  For the love of God, don’t do it!

It actually just started as a typical day on Dustbowl… Our team was pushing forward, the obligatory nest of sentries were guarding the point with a horribly predictable hail of gunfire, and a lot of people were dying. It was this last point that was keeping me playing as a Medic, bringing people back from the brink of death and often trying to lead the push forward with an uber. One Heavy was constantly bleating for healing, even though he ran stupidly into the warzone and sentry fire where my healing goodness was worthless every single time, but I shrugged that off. I was being awesome and having a good time, after all! Well, I was, until…

This message arrived. It was from the person playing the Heavy, with the name removed to protect the idiotic. He was annoyed because I wasn’t on his back all the time and was healing others, so basically he was annoyed because I was playing the class correctly. Yet you’ve heard this all before… You should try and heal everyone as a Medic, prioritize targets when they’re friendly and say thanks, and generally be a good all-rounder that doesn’t stick to one person like mad unless they really need it. It was my goal to keep everyone alive, right? I should keep doing it regardless of idiots, right? Well, yeah, but I took that goal…

And I defied it.

That Heavy constantly calling for a Medic? The one who was trash talking and whining because things weren’t going his way? My goal actually transformed into ensuring I never healed him. Ever. Even if there was a situation whereupon healing him could have won the entire game, I wouldn’t of healed him. I watched him die over and over again, picturing in my mind how frustrated he was getting as I just stared and waited for his untimely demise. The sense of power, knowing that I could control who lives and who dies by my actions, was overwhelming me at that very point. If you annoyed me, you died. If you didn’t, you lived. It was a simple rule, but an effective one. A maniacal smile played upon my lips as the weak fell by the wayside and the strong ones grew under my care… Sorry, am I scaring you yet? Anyway…

I had become an evil Medic, one that chose who was going to have fun and who was going to spend lots of time taking trips to the respawn room. Is this the right way to play the class? Absolutely not. It’s practically the opposite. But is this a fun way of playing the class? I’m ashamed to say that it was. I’d never make it a definitive practise of mine, but I now know that if someone doesn’t treat my medical skills in the right way, I can make them suffer. But its not something limited just to me – You yourself can make the whole game fall into the palm of your hands! Try it some time, if you dare, but be wary with the knowledge that such power could corrupt you in a way that you’ll never turn back…

Cheers to Herpers for the pic!

Server regular (and beastly good soldier) Like Bear` recently pointed these videos out to me. Both of them are frag videos, featuring some of the most ridiculous skills you will ever see. This is blasphemy! This is madness!

Madness? THIS-IS-

ROCKET SCIENCE!

I dare not embed this 236MB monster here, but this is a must-watch. This shows the pro soldier yaug` (currently on the CEVO-P team Sway Gaming) absolutely destroying some of the biggest names in professional TF2. The skill level here is way over 9000. Rocket Science »

The Experiment

This one is a compilation of footage from several players, but it primarily features dummy (currently on the CEVO-P team Complexity) owning it up as Demoman. (Some of this footage is fairly old, just like the previous video, so you may notice him having an abnormally large number of reserve grenades).

The Experiment ~ By Dummy »

…and you thought you were good.

I haven’t played Team Fortress 2 in a week, because one week ago a realized that I’m terrible at it. The realization came to me during a loading screen. I was going to log into my favorite server to just joke around. It’s 100% crits and always is on Mario Kart, so being serious is pretty damn impossible there. It was taking more time than usual to load, and to pass the time I was examining my stats.

Watch in case you don’t know what the Mario Kart map looks like.

There are always a few emotions that come with seeing my stats, my puzzlement when I see my playtime as a Soldier, always so far ahead of the other classes, for some strange reason, a little bit of regret when I see my Medic, Heavy, Pyro, and now Scout stats, which I carelessly Achievement-farmed up to kill sprees in the 200s I didn’t really earn, and a little bit of pride when I see my real best score, a 21-point spree as a Soldier.

But then I realize something. That spree was on duel_duelv2, where I just stood next to a health cabinet in my base and fired out the door. This isn’t my big realization, but it’s the first step. To make myself feel better, I look at my best sprees as other classes. That’s when it begins to sink in. My best sprees are fives, fours, and sometimes threes. I begin to feel uncomfortable, but all hope is not lost, I have the mantra to fall back on.

Team Fortress 2 is not a game about you, it’s about your team. I say this to myself until I feel better again. However, the realization will not let me go. It grabs my throat with cold hard self-discovery. I realize a huge problem with my mantra. Sure, I’ve been on a lot of winning teams before, but I’ve never really helped win the game. I’m not the Scout who rushes through 2fort with the intelligence, protected by the Soldier for the final capture of a long game, or the Engineer who stops the final rush on the last control point of Dustbowl with a dispenser, a sentry, a wrench, and his own sweat, and a friendly Heavy. I’m not even the Soldier or the Heavy helping them win.

In 2Fort, I’m the Demoman who decides to lay down some stickybombs to cover the Scout’s retreat back to our base, and thinks he’ll be a genius by booby-trapping both doors of the enemy base, only to have not placed enough nerfed bombs to kill the Heavy coming out of the first door, and his second trap decimated by a Pyro’s shotgun, only to be final killed from above by a sniper with an SMG.

In Dustbowl, I’m the “Offensive on Defense” Engineer who thinks he’s been so clever by putting up a base in an unexpected place along the BLU team’s route to the final point. I sit there, hammering away at my Sentry, sometimes upgrading my dispenser and my teleporter. I finally get my sentry to that coveted level 3 with just the metal from my dispenser, and in its life it gets off two shots at a passing Scout. Soon I am Stab/Sapped by a Spy.

A bunch of other labels fly into my head, some even from my favorite TF2 site (just guess which site I’m talking about.)

I’m the W+M1 Pyro, I’m the weighted Companion Sniper, and I’m the spider web Demoman. I’ve had the game for a year, and have not gotten any better at it.

I’m a terrible Team Fortress 2 player.

In pure disgust, both at myself and the game, I push back from the desk where my desktop is kept. I sit there for some time, just feeling empty. Back on the desk, my game has finally loaded, and sounds of explosions and laughing drifts through the speakers. I look up and stare at the computer monitor, before I quit the game and walk away. I don’t log out of Steam.

The next week, I avoid the game. I look at the desktop once, preferring instead the surf the web on my five-year-old soundless laptop. I’m extra enthusiastic when my family goes on a four-day trip to the Bahamas, because I can’t bring any computers and don’t have to be reminded of Team Fortress 2. I’m even kind of glad when we spend the weekend back in our terrible summer home in New Jersey, because the desktop there cannot even run Steam, let alone Team Fortress 2. I even delay listening to the new Control Point episode for awhile.

There is one Team Fortress 2 site I keep coming back to, though. The entire week, I keep reading the posts here on Ubercharged.net, and making an attempt to at least lurk on the forms. I don’t really know why, but I just can’t let go of the site.
Then, as I’m checking the forums for about the third time these last ten minutes, I see the answer to my problem. The answer is in the far right corner of the Ubercharged banner, in the back of the RED team. He stands up straight in a spotless white-and-red lab coat, bonesaw in hand, grinning at his teammates like he knows something they don’t.

Stephen Colbert is the answer.

Okay, it’s not really Stephen Colbert, but that’s what I’ve called the Medic ever since I showed my friend a trailer for Team Fortress 2 and he pointed out the (albeit pretty small) similarity between everyone’s favorite terrible doctor and everyone’s favorite terrible Republican.

Regardless, the Medic is still my answer. If I can’t contribute to the team’s win directly, I’ll contribute to other people’s contributions. Every team needs Medics, but sometimes there are no medics. Maybe no one has noticed that there is a Medic shortage, or nobody wants to get all their points through assists.

No longer, though. Now, every team I am one will have at least one Medic. The other team has a right to fear. If they try to stop me, (hopefully) my medic buddy will strike them down with holy rage. If they find me by myself in a hallway, and try to take me out, (hopefully) a barrage of needles will pierce their flesh, actually granting me more health. Then, (hopefully) my upgraded Bonesaw will slice their skull open, and their blood will fuel the last-ditch ubercharge that overwhelms their last engineer and grants my team victory.

I am now A CAREER MEDIC

(Well, not really, since at the time of writing I’m still in my summer house and haven’t played Team Fortress 2 in a week, but hey, I’m gonna try.)

Anyway, I look forward to Ubercharging you soon.

Unless you’re these guys, of course.

From deep within the hidden, entrenched vaults inside the fortified base of the League of Spies, comes a secret so deep, so dark, that those without the necessary intestinal fortitu… okay, I can’t say it with a straight face.
Here’s the gist; some facestabs are NOT accidental. A particularly obscure Spy tactic, experience with the class oftentimes brings one this ability, but it can be done with the proper instruction by itself. Learn this well. It may net you an extra kill and save your life in a particularly bad situation. Maybe. Perhaps. Y’know, if you play a lot of Spy like me. XD (just passed my 100th hour)

There are probably quite a few techniques out there that I haven’t heard of, but here, I bring you two of the ones I use occasionally one because of new knife mechanics I KNOW SUCKS DOESN’T IT NOTHING I CAN DO YET LOLOLOL.

Actually, yeah, Valve would have you believe that they’ve fixed facestabs. Again. Again again. Which I doubt true, because it seems to be occuring a lot more frequently than before. I wouldn’t be surprised if Valve’s been messing with the code behind our backs. But I’ve still got one more that’s somewhat usable, particularly if you’re in a desperate situation. Listen well, agent, and attempt it sometime when you feel you’ve got a perfect situation.

Why am I writing this? Honestly, I have no idea. I just felt that I needed to do something useless before moving onto the next part. Yeah, I wish I knew.
So, here goes. The rest of you…

Technique #1 #2

Requirements:
- Butterfly Knife, model X-1320R
- Decent amount of health (>75)
- Straight line corridor, although not necessary
- Ping of 70 or greater
- Enemy that runs at same speed or faster than you. (Demomen work, in a pinch)

Got the above ingredients? Great. Here’s the (very) situational situation.

Run straight to your enemy’s face, and hope that he starts backpedaling. Or alternatively, head towards a backpedaling enemy’s face and start poking (this is harder). Once he does, you’ll see him start bumping back and forth on your screen. This is the right time to attack. Order now, and I’ll throw in a backstab kill, absolutely free!

I’m really not sure of the entirety of the mechanics, but it seems a combination of lag and hitbox detection do the trick. Basically, the server is detecting you “falling” into the enemy character model, so attacking now would actually strike the back hitbox.

Things you have to make sure of:
- You’re the one running into the enemy first, and holding down W.
- The enemy runs at the same speed or faster than you (based on my testing)
- You don’t do this when you could easily cloak up behind said enemy >.>

Additionally, here’s a video I found on Youtube. They’ve got some different results. From my testing, it works on servers where I have a high ping (>75), not the enemy, and doesn’t work on Heavies on Soldiers because they run too slow. Not sure why that makes it fail. It DOES work on Scouts and Medics, but why you would try it on a Scout beats me. And yes, it may or may not work. Just hope for a dash of luck if you ever find yourself needing to use it. And yeah, it still works after the update.

Here’s something else that’s neat. If you ask me, he just made someone invisible and made him do the stabbing, but if there were a technique like this that didn’t require a still enemy, that would be soooo cooool!

Give it a shot next time you’re free. Should be fun.
Thought this was a waste of your time? I’m sorry, then. Here’s a piece of art to make up for it.

Just had to show that. Honestly, I have no idea how it happened. I just threw a couple of ragdolls away and when I went to look for them, they were like this. oO Really! No part of them is locked in place. It just happened. Don’t believe me? Well, shut up then! >= D

Anyway, happy Spying. And remember kids, whine loud and hard enough and Valve will return the old knife hitboxes.

Editor’s note: Yes, dammit. Old hitboxes, please. -himmelstoss
Greetings from Secret Agent Clank!

As odd as the Team Fortress 2 classes are, whether it be the drunk Demoman or silent but deadly spy, they are not so different from the very people we meet in our every day lives.

Besides from the fact that they kill people for certain secret color-coded organizations run by a particularly dominating middle-aged woman, they exhibit traits that I’m sure many of you have seen in people. In reality. In fact, I think that Valve had certain people in mind when they dreamed up this colorful band of cartoonish characters!

The following will detail certain jobs that these classes may hold (so you can go looking for those people), their personalities (remind you of any of your friends? Acquaintances?), and the likability factor that will see how well you can get along with them.

Here is your chance to meet the class- in reality.

The Scout

Personality and Traits: Foul-mouthed, very cocky and belligerent. Very arrogant and proud to display some sort of athletic ability. Tends to be skinny, young (in the 20s or even adolescent), and white. Likes to workout by jogging and listening to headphones.

Likely Jobs: Cashier, baseball player, track star, UPS brown shirt messengers, newspaper delivery boy, stand-up comedian

Likability Factor: 3 out of 5 if you don’t go picking fights or arguing with him. 2 out of 5 if you’re big.

The Soldier

Personality and Traits: Has a “growling” voice, tends to be the dominating voice. Appears to be late 20s, or 30s. Always seems to wear the same clothes everyday (usually army-related). Always seems to conserve food by eating canned food and rations. Tends to be tough, aggressive, yet not in a cocky sort of way.

Likely Jobs: Soldier, coach, one of those people who encourages people to work out more often at the gym, drill sergeant

Likability Factor: 3 out of 5 if he doesn’t know you that well. 2 out of 5 if he does.

The Pyro

Personality and Traits: Incomprehensible, always seems to be occupied with something else. Anti-social, questionable gender. The guy or girl who’s always there but never noticed. The misfit or outcast

Likely Jobs: ?

Likability Factor: N/A if you don’t know him and he/she doesn’t know you. Varies based on the pyro’s mood at a certain day.

The Heavy

Personality and Traits: Big. Huge. Silent, but unusually violent. Does whatever he wants, because nobody wants to mess with him/her. Gets caught up in bloodlust quite easily when aroused. Surprisingly violent. Likes all sorts of food and being well.

Likely Jobs: Bouncer, PE coach, wrestler, the “silent” bully, chef, patient or guinea pig for experiment

Likability Factor: 5 out of 5 if you’re a doctor or fellow “comrade.” N/A if not noticed

The Demoman

Personality and Traits: Always on the wrong side of the bed every morning. Clumsy, and hurts himself/herself quite easily. Likes fireworks and loud noises. Has an addiction to alcohol and/or always doing something that could really hurt. Has erratic mood swings; jolly at times, surprisingly violent at other times. Mixed race.

Likely Jobs: Demolition, bomb squad member

Likability Factor: It all varies.

The Engineer

Personality and Traits: Laid-back, relaxed, “cool,” never in a rush. The studious, quiet kind of student. Most likely to win the National Science Fair. Doesn’t seem to be too refined or genteel by others. Usually has a drawl, loves parties. Some innuendoes involved. Sexual orientation questionable?

Likely Jobs: Scientist, college professor, physicist, engineer, architect, builder, weapons and ammunition specialist, army engineer

Likability Factor: 4 out of 5. Can get along with most people.

The Sniper

Personality and Traits: Like the pyro, except not seen around that much. Always looking at something far far away. Quiet, hard to find at certain times, though he/she may stay at certain places for long periods of time. Anti-social. Never seems to use the restroom at all.Very patient and still.

Likely Jobs: Surveyor, recon officer, voyeur, guy who looks for cheating couples on Valentine’s Day, eye doctor.

Likability Factor: 2.5 out of 5. Not social at all.

The Medic

Personality and Traits: Always has intellectual criticism, harsh words. Most likely to make some people cry. Has good medical knowledge, though he/she can be very rough and unsteady with hands. Second smartest in class. Hangs out with the tougher, bigger people for protection.

Likely Jobs: Doctor, pharmacist, surgeon, corpsman

Likability Factor: 2.5 out of 5. Again, not too many kind words. 5 out of 5 if you’re big.

The Spy

Personality and Traits: Like the sniper, never seen around. In fact, things happen when he or she doesn’t seem to be around. Anti-social. Very refined, has aura of superiority wherever he or she goes. Most likely to die of first-hand smoking. Hangs out with girls, though they end up getting dumped almost immediately. Very bad at fixing electronics, let alone handling them.

Likely Jobs: guy who looks for cheaters, playboy, gourmand, CIA, critic

Likability Factor: 5 out of 5 if you’re a attractive, usuable girl. Other than that, 2.5 out of 5.

So the next time you see your little brother break your PSP within a few seconds or a classmate transport his or her essentials from one place to another quickly through the use of a machine that utilizes quantum physics, just remember- everybody has a little bit of the Team Fortress 2 classes in them.

So, well done guys. I watch from the outside as you rant on and on about how the Scout’s new bat is overpowered, until Valve had no choice but to stick their fingers in their ears to drown out the noise, and alter it so it’s not as awesome anymore. I applaud your skills in whining, and watch you in admiration as you find the next thing to complain about. Why am I sounding so bitter about all of this? Because I don’t think the Sandman was as big a game-breaker as everyone made it out to be, and unlike those people, I have some reasoning to back this up. Sure, I accept I’m on the 360 and therefore have no concrete proof or pent up frustration about being hit by the thing over and over, but hear me out. It’s time for the defence to state their case…

“I get hit by it all the time!”

Fact – Every class update makes it so 90% of the Team Fortress 2 player population play that class. Fact – That means that the new unlocks will be used by those players. Fact – That means you will be killed by these unlocks. A lot.

To put it another way, I accept that you’re going to be bonk’d a lot, but that’s only because there’s six Scouts running around all trying to do the same thing…. Give it a few weeks and it’s inevitable that it’ll be back down to one or two Scouts a team, and baseballs won’t be flying around with reckless abandon anymore. Indeed, that one Scout may miss or screw up, giving you a good choice to lay the smackdown as he fails in his attempts to kill you. In short, you won’t get hit as much. Happy now?

“It’s hard to avoid, especially at corners!”

It’s odd to me that people are getting upset that when the ball flies at them, they can’t act like they’re in the Matrix and avoid it. They think it should travel through the air as if it was travelling through treacle, giving them ample time to laugh at the apparent n00b Scout as they walk out of the way. Well, let me say this – Get over it! Think of the ball as a special kind of bullet, and then think how stupid it would be if everyone could avoid bullets without having to chug down some Bonk Cola first. If you want to actually avoid it, it should be a matter of pre-empting the move – See a Scout with a bat up ahead? Pretty good bet that he’s going to try and get you with it. Act accordingly!

In the event your idiocy makes it so you screw up, or you’ve been hit when you turn a corner, I ask you this – Where’s your team? This is a team game, after all, and the clue to that is in the name. If you’re being Rambo and rushing off ahead, don’t moan when you get caught out… A good team would blow the Scout to tiny bits before he could even switch weapons to attack properly, and let’s not forget that ball isn’t going to hit everyone all at once. If you’re in a situation where your team would be a hindrance, such as playing the Spy, you could say that it becomes unfair then – But not really. You see, if you’re hit then, you’ve been outsmarted. Your flank has failed, your sapping skills compromised. The chances are you’d be dead after being revealed even without being hit by the ball, and this is the Scout’s reward for outsmarting you and actually getting hit shot on target – Another tricky factor. After all, you can’t kill them every time, and the steps the Scout has to do means their reward is rightfully earned…

“It’s stupid because it can stop Ubers!”

Well, you see, a tiny baseball would logically stop an invincible bullet-spitting machine of de… Actually, yeah, this bit is pretty stupid.

“The force-a-nature cancels out the fact you have no double jump!”

IT DOESN’T. Really, have you even shot the damn thing? Seen it in action? Anything? The upward momentum it gives the Scout is tiny and incomparable to the double jump, meaning that many areas remain unreachable. It’s also very hard to use effectively, and again is incomparable to just pressing the spacebar twice in a row. You see, effective use of the upthrust that the force-a-nature gives you actually arises when the Sandman is not equipped – It allows Scouts to travel to brand new height, hide in new little corners, and generally give the bad guys hell as a result. You won’t be doing stuff like this with the Sandman, put it that way.

Oh, and this just made my brain hurt, so I’m ignoring it because I can. HA.

“I don’t like being stunned!”

I was browsing the Steam Forums a few days ago, looking for arguments I could counter with my dazzling wit and charming charisma, and I was amazed how many times people were using this as a legitimate reason to nerf the Sandman. Sure, I accept that the game is meant to be fun. Sure, I accept I’d get annoyed myself if I lost control due to a well-placed shot by a baseball. Yet that’s not a reason to actually remove it, because then I’d petition to remove the afterburn from the flamethrower, because I hate dying to it. Or crit rockets because it’s not fun that it’s one well-placed rocket by a skilful soldier that killed me. Or every other gun except the one I’m using, because I don’t like people constantly shooting me. This sounding stupid to you? Yes? Good. You get the point.

So, the defence rests – The Sandman wasn’t as stupid as some of you might have made it out to be. Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to be running for the nearest nuclear bunker, because I get the feeling the comments to this are not going to be entirely sympathetic…

It appears once again I over presumed and rushed everything, meaning this article is, for lack of a fancier word, wrong. Please scroll through the comments for Drexer’s post regarding this. For the next day or so I’ll keep the article up before deleting or overwriting it. Can’t say how sorry I am folks. -oldmeme

Before you go on reading, this article goes into some of the minuscule areas of the game and may not entirely affect gameplay for everyone, but is nonetheless interesting.

With the scout update leaving a funny taste in most players mouths, we are starting to see the slow decline now in the number of scouts (and those bloody Sandman Scouts). But of all the unlockable weapons release, including the other classes, the Force-a-Nature is by far my favorite. Simply because it loves being different. Its not a mere take “one positive trait and add a new one”. It is almost an entirely different weapon in terms of Scout playstyle. But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about the levels for force the FaN exerts when you shoot it for that little extra jump.

To begin, lets look back to pre-Scout update. All you had was a little Double jump. Now imagine yourself jumping from a sizable height and saving your health by executing the double jump. If the ledge is high enough, you will actually lose speed from using the double jump to save yourself.

This is because the force given by jumping goes at a range of somewhere around 80 to 90 degrees of an angle upward. Not to the side. Now to give out that force, the computer needs to give out a strong enough opposing force to let you jump the same height every time. For example, as a Scout, whether I fall a 100 meter height, or 5 meters, I will always reach the same height when I use my double jump to break the fall. This is done by the computer, who comes up with an opposing variable force that will always be equal to x, the exact height the scout reaches with a double jump. This force is variable because of Valve’s handy physics engine that is close to real life physics, gaining speed as you fall, before attaining a constant velocity from falling in those extreme height custom maps.

Here is a handy little picture to show what I mean:

Now this is all well and good, it means you will always get the same height from a double jump. But the interesting fact is that Valve did the very same thing for the Force of Nature (FaN). “What does that mean?” you ask. It means the faster your velocity while in the air, the more force you release to gain the same height every time when you shoot directly down, just like the double jump.

Basically this is a copy paste of the above, but the with the FaN, is that the force is not fixed to a centered direction. You can aim and angle this force. So the force the computer works out to oppose my falling force (I took this to be Kinetic Energy for those following the physics side of this) must be equal to x, were it going straight up. In this case, the force is instead used at an angle and is so great in power, it flings you around like a mouse to a tennis racket.

Again, a helpful picture:

This is why when you double jump and instantly shoot, the opposite direction you are traveling in you do not fly forward. In fact, you lose speed because you are not falling at a fast enough.  So if I double jump in one direction, then instantly shoot, I lose variable speed. But if I jump from the second or fourth point on Badlands, and then shoot at a 45 degree angle downward right before I hit the ground, my multiplied force is exerted sideways. Meaning you get a sharp boost of speed that is faster than scouts running speed.

This may or may not be implemented in-game very well, but I did find it incredibly handy on maps like cp_badlands and pl_badwater which had loads of high drops to manipulate this little feature. Try it for yourself and give a comment if you have have had any fun with it already. As always, thanks for reading.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, this implementation is capped and will not let you shoot yourself to infinity and beyond. The biggest difference will depend on current speed and the angle of which you shoot, best I think at that sweet spot of a 45 degree angle. Use with caution. Not intended for children under the age of three.

Pictures were made by me using Photoshop CS2 and Garry’s Mod. I wanted to work out a sum for this but I am still only through my first year through secondary school Physics and did not get very far… (something along the lines of Ek ? ????Ek = x) . If you are up for the challenge, leave it in the comment box or on the forums. Thanks to indivisible who made an attempt at it for me

EDIT: Spelling mistakes off the port bow cap’n!